


Let's Dance Like We Used To

by AndreaLyn



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-25
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn't a world in which Danny wouldn't go after Grace. So when Rachel moves the family to California, Danny goes with. Steve gets left to process life without Danny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, that word count is exactly how many donuts I baked in Iqaluit in four days. But that's another story. The title is from _Unfinished Business_ by Mumford  & Sons, gyzym was my incrediwonderawesome beta who let me ramble and this story is for liketheroad, who puts up with me.

Danny leaves the island on a Tuesday.

It’s not a day that anyone is likely to forget. For one, Grace has a pretty big fit at the airport when it comes time to say goodbye to Chin and Kono. Danny feels for her, he really does. The kid didn’t ask to be taken away from her home once, and now she has to go through it all over again. Worse, this time she’s old enough to really know what she’s leaving behind. Grace sulks and pouts, but Rachel just holds onto her hand tighter. “Grace, our flight is boarding,” she prompts.

Grace turns to Danny, looking a little wild around the eyes. “Danno, Steve isn’t here yet.”

Danny’s holding a boarding pass in his hands. He’s booked onto the very same flight as his daughter’s happy shiny family because he meant it when he said that he’d follow Grace anywhere, no matter what. He’d go to the moon and Jupiter and right back if he had to. They’ve been in Oahu for three years now, but Stan’s business isn’t the kind that keeps them in one place. It’s time for them to move on and home from here on out is San Diego.

Danny had known what he was going to do from the moment Rachel delivered the news. After all, he’s pretty predicable when it comes to his daughter.

Rachel and Stan pack up their livelihood and along goes Grace to a new home. Despite having a rough go of accepting it, Danny knows that there’s no other option. He’s going, too. All his possessions have been sent in advance -- his meager little collection of a life in sad little brown boxes -- and he’s ready to follow.

They’d be on that plane, too, if it weren’t for Grace’s stubborn determination to say goodbye to a man who hasn’t even got the stones to show up and see them off.

Danny wishes this didn’t _hurt_ so goddamn much. After three years working with Steve and forming the perfect partnership they had, he thinks he deserves at least a goodbye. If nothing else, maybe one of those constipated SEAL looks where Steve’s forehead gets all pinched and he crosses his arms tight over his torso and shows off those back muscles he’s spent years cultivating. Instead, Danny’s hovering just outside security and getting nothing. Nada.

“Chin, we really don’t have much time and I can’t afford to change my ticket,” Danny warns. “If he’s not here soon…”

“I’m on it, bro,” Chin says, already getting his phone out to text Steve.

Kono lingers, a worried look on her face trying to supersede the sadness. “I’m going to miss you, Danny. I’m really, really going to miss you.” She’s moving forward in no time, throwing her arms around him tightly and burying her face in his neck. “I always thought maybe it’d be New Jersey that got you. Boss always said so.”

“Yeah, well, Steve had a paranoid fear that Jersey could pull me back,” Danny says, teasing her as he brushes hair from off her cheek. “I’m just a flight away, okay? I mean, hell, Mary does it all the time, who says I can’t visit?”

“It won’t be the same,” is all Kono has to say about that, the sadness becoming overwhelming. “Catch a wave for me, will you? Just one. Please?”

“We’ll see. I mean, I’m moving back to the mainland, I’m pretty sure I’m going to become at _least_ five times more sane the minute my feet touch the ground,” Danny jokes, a grin on his face to mask the fact that this is one of the hardest moments of his entire life. “And hey! Now you’re getting a promotion. Steve’s gonna need a new partner and you have been roundhousing your way into his heart, don’t think he hasn’t noticed.”

Kono just hugs him that much tighter and for a second Danny feels like he can’t breathe. He’s never been good with loss and while he knows this has always been a possibility, seeing it in reality – Grace leaving, him shadowing – is killing him.

Chin hangs up and heads back over. “ETA ten minutes.”

“He made you say that verbatim, didn’t he,” Danny accuses, but they really are running out of time. He claps a hand on Chin’s shoulder and brings him closer into a tight hug, trying to keep himself together. He’s got all the time in the world to lose it on the plane. Right now, he’s Danny Williams, steady rock of emotions.

Chin looks pretty happy for him. He looks as if he’s ready to congratulate Danny on getting what he wants.

Danny ignores the sick feeling in his stomach that is so very quick to remind him that ever since he joined Five-O and met Steve McGarrett, what he wants has been sliding over an axis of change and has become something so entirely different. “You’re on my five.”

“I’m on your what?” Danny protests with a burst of strangled laughter at the insanity of it all.

“My family five, bro, call any time,” Chin says seriously, wiggling his phone.

“I’m glad to have nudged out Cousin Ele for the privilege,” Danny deadpans, but hugs Chin a little tighter, nonetheless, only releasing him when Grace starts tugging at his pants, demanding her turn.

Danny shifts his gaze to the line for security where Rachel has been lingering, pointedly staring at her watch. He mouths ‘I know’ as clearly as he can and keeps his attention simultaneously on his watch and the airport doors. He bends down and looks Grace in the eye.

It’s time to do damage control because it’s looking like Steve isn’t going to make it.

Danny buries the rage that settles in his stomach. Now is not the time to go over his many issues with Steve and what his absence is implying. Danny doesn’t want to focus on the fact that a good number of those issues didn’t even exist until Danny showed up and told Steve he was moving and things grew strange between them. “Monkey,” Danny says softly, “Uncle Steve looks like he’s still in traffic. How about we get through security and then we can call him when we land?”

“I want to say goodbye, though,” Grace replies, sounding so very unsure. “Can’t we just wait a little longer, Danno?”

“Just a little bit,” Danny says because he would miss the plane if it meant he could say goodbye to Steve properly. But planes wait for no man, child, or Navy SEAL who can’t run on time.

He scrubs a hand through his hair as he feels tension start to sink through his body like a stone. He really can’t miss this flight and he’s so _pissed_ , so righteously pissed at McGarrett for doing this to him.

Yeah, so it’s difficult. Of course it’s fucking difficult. It’s not like this is Danny’s first choice. If he had his way, Grace would stay exactly where she was so Danny could stay with Five-O. So Danny could stay with Steve. For the last few months, things had been building up to the point that Danny was sure the pressure was going to blow and they were going to make headway into this _thing_ they had.

He still isn’t sure if he would’ve made the first move or if it would’ve been Steve, but it was gonna happen. Danny had been feeling it right down to his bones. Then came the fateful phone call from Rachel which set off a chain reaction of apartment hunting, job transfer applications, and telling Steve.

Steve, who had taken the news like a robot. Who’d said, “You’d do anything for Grace,” and then didn’t speak to Danny for two whole days, which had been impressive considering they still shared a car during that time.

And then, like a switch got turned off, Danny stopped catching those looks of Steve’s that lingered just a minute or two too long. Steve had stopped pressing his hands to Danny’s person and, in general, it had been like Steve reverted back to the cold and calculating man he had been when Danny had first met him – before Danny had done some good work on the headstrong menace, in his not so humble opinion.

And now he’s late to say goodbye. That’s not the part that miffs Danny. Sure, he’s pissed and all, but he can cope. It’s the fact that Steve is late and it’s making _Grace_ upset that doesn’t even qualify for any kind of safe harbor. There are things you just do not do and upsetting Danny’s daughter is numero uno on that list.

“Chin, we gotta go,” Danny says, when eight minutes has passed.

“No,” Kono begs. “Wait, hold on, I see his truck.”

Danny hates his traitorous emotions, which practically leap at the knowledge that Steve is here. He can even see him flash his badge at the parking attendant and that, more than anything, makes Danny shake his head at how _Steve_ he’s being, even now.

Danny gives Grace a light nudge and watches her go running off in Steve’s direction, jumping up into his arms and holding on so tight that it looks like one of them is going to break. That look on Steve’s face is a pretty good hint that it’ll be him. Danny watches them and remembers to breathe, lets out a hiss of an exhalation that he’d been keeping in.

Steve whispers something to Grace and she nods and nods. Eventually, he sets her back on the floor and she readjusts the straps of her Barbie backpack and wanders back over to Danny’s side.

“He wants to see you, Danno,” Grace says very seriously.

“Chin, can you take her over to Rachel?” Danny asks, but he hasn’t let his gaze slip away from Steve for a single second. Chin says something, Danny’s sure he does, but Danny is a little more preoccupied with the fact that he’s closing the distance between him and Steve and he’s not entirely sure yet if he’s going to do something really stupid like kiss him or something really sane like punch him to bookend their Hawaii relationship.

In the end, he compromises by shoving Steve as hard as he can before hauling him back, hands gripping his shoulders to pull him into a tight embrace.

“You’re an asshole and if you’d been two minutes later, you would’ve ruined Grace’s day,” Danny says, tipping his face to the side so his words don’t get muffled by Steve’s ridiculous chest. He starts to feel really awkward about the fact that they’re doing this while thousands of people mill around them and backs off, clearing his throat.

Steve’s doing the whole thousand-yard stare thing and oh god, is it pissing the crap out of Danny.

“I’m not even joking, Steve, I’ve got _minutes_ before security’s gonna close down my flight and I gotta go,” Danny says, not sure if he’s expecting Steve to flash a ticket that says he’s coming along or whether he’s really just going to keep staring. Steve just keeps standing there and saying nothing. “Okay, fuck this,” Danny announces. “Steve, I have to go, so, say whatever it is you’re going to say and let’s get it over with.”

“Danno,” Steve says, looking him up and down. “Don’t forget to put on sunscreen. The UV levels are high in California right now.”

“The UV, the UV levels are…” Danny is sputtering at this point, shaking his head. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting, but he thought maybe it’d be a little more intimate or personal than ‘hey Danny, I’m concerned about you contracting melanoma’. He exhales and it’s sharp enough that it feels like his chest collapses once the breath is out of him.

Steve is standing there stoic and steady. He’s not about to do anything else and it’s Danny who decides ‘to hell with it’.

He winds his hand around Steve’s neck, burying in the short hairs at the nape and just hauls Steve down to him, pressing their foreheads firmly together. He can feel Steve breathing against his neck and Danny stays resolute and strong.

“If you die because I left the island, you’re gonna piss me off an incredible amount, Steve,” is all Danny has to say in warning. “And I have put too much work and time and _blood_ into keeping you alive and turning you into a good cop to just let you do that. I’m a flight away, do _not_ think this gives you permission to go crazy.” He tightens his grip when Steve tries to back away.

If he’d wanted to, if Steve had actually resisted, Danny would never have been able to keep him there. Steve doesn’t move a single inch. Danny lets his gaze flick up and he looks at Steve’s half-lidded eyes, the way his lashes just barely brush against his cheek and thinks about how many times this gorgeous man has heard all about how good he looks.

Danny tightens his grip once more, bringing Steve in so close that he could do anything. He could kiss him, he could punch him, he could beg for Steve to say something else, but Danny holds strong.

“I’m serious,” Danny says in warning. “Steve…”

“Danno,” Steve finally says, interrupting him. “Your family is waiting.”

“You asshole, you’re family too,” Danny accuses, wondering if Steve is just playing a martyr or if he genuinely doesn’t know. He finally lets go of Steve and from the look on Steve’s face, he didn’t actually know, which just breaks Danny’s heart in about twelve ways at once. “Steve, I’ll call,” he promises. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I’m not wearing ties, Danny.”

It’s just what he needs to lighten him up. Danny lets out a laugh as he grabs hold of his carry-on and blows one final kiss in Steve’s direction before joining Rachel and Grace at the security line.

“He’s not coming?” Rachel remarks softly, like she’d been expecting it too.

Danny has to stop living in a fantasy. They’re adults and this isn’t some pulp novel off the shelves of the romance section. “What are you talking about, are you kidding me?” he says, getting his ID and his boarding pass ready. “The man has a job to do, a task force to run, and his home is here. What are you talking about, he’s not coming, of course he’s not.”

Rachel gives a thoughtful noise and proceeds, leaving Danny to take hold of Grace’s hand tightly.

“Ready, Danno?”

“Ready as I’m getting, Monkey,” Danny agrees and with one last look back at Steve, he boards the flight that takes him far, far away from Hawaii.

*

The idea that Danny would just forget Hawaii in the blink of an eye is a fair assumption only to the people who don’t really _get_ him. Sure, he never liked the place. It was too hot, it had too many tropical fruits, and the way of life just isn’t something that Danny could ever get used to. He likes it when he doesn’t live in a place where ‘welcome to the island’ is a catch-all to explain everything wrong with the way that Danny lives his life.

Still, there were good things about it, too. And that’s why there’s no way that he’d ever just forget.

San Diego isn’t exactly that much of a change from his regular routine. It’s on the mainland, sure, but it still gets plenty hot and he’s still occasionally surrounded by beach bums who wouldn’t know a tie if it strangled them.

It makes him think of Oahu and Five-O. It makes him want to pick up the phone and call headquarters to get new updates.

For every surfboard that makes him think of Kono, every motorbike passing by his apartment in the middle of the night reminding him of Chin, there’s something here that’s far worse. The presence of the Naval Base makes him think of Steve, _always_ and constantly. Every time they have a case that brings them onto the base, Danny looks at men with short-cut hair and lithe bodies and sees Steve. He’s gone half-crazy thinking he’s actually _seen_ Steve about three times now and Garcia, his partner, is starting to worry about him.

“Always on the base, brother,” Garcia says while they’re parked outside a lunch truck, grabbing a couple of deli sandwiches before they go back to the precinct to question another suspect. “What’s the matter, did a sailor fuck you over in a previous life?”

And because Danny doesn’t even know what Steve’s done to him, he doesn’t get hot under the collar. Instead, he just laughs until his stomach’s sore and claps Garcia on the back. “It’s a long story, my friend, and I’m not even sure I know how to tell it right.”

So yeah, this whole place has reminders for him. He takes them in, lets them settle, and when he’s ready, he calls Five-O and lets Chin tell him all about their latest caseload. He lets Kono regale her last victory on the water.

On the days that he’s really feeling strong, he bucks up his bravery and says, “Put Steve on, will you?”

There’s a hesitation and a shuffle as if they’re not sure if it’s a good idea to do that, but moments later, Steve turns up on the other end of the line.

“Hi.” Danny always speaks first, a halting awkwardness in his speech that had never been there before he put half an ocean between them. “How are you?” It’s like they’re acquaintances, like in the last months before Danny had left, Danny hadn’t been slowly moving all his things into Steve’s place in a kind of blind game of chicken.

Danny had pretended that he was getting away with it and Steve had pretended not to notice and slowly all of Danny’s things began to take up residence in Steve’s closet. Danny’s lease had been about to expire and Danny was going to make it official then, but before he could do that, Rachel and the Call came.

Now, it’s like they’re _strangers_.

“You blow anyone up today?” Danny asks and, god help him, as pissy as he is at Steve for being a total asshole who’s knocked their relationship back several ice ages, he still can’t help his fond tone. And Steve, so very aware of his tones, can probably pick it out thousands of miles away. “Because I’ve been checking the newspaper and it’s almost like you’re behaving.”

“I don’t blow people up, Danny,” is Steve’s heated reply.

So it’s going to be one of _those_ days. Danny sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose as he heads to the kitchen for a beer. If Steve is going to be like this, Danny’s going to be in need of some alcoholic assistance.

“Steve,” Danny sighs. “Look, is it possible for you to drop the machismo for ten minutes? Fifteen?” Danny begs, pleads, practically cajoles and he’s using his free hand to gesticulate, even though Steve can’t actually see it. “What happened, babe?”

“Well,” comes Steve’s patient reply, “I got to work one day to find a job transfer application on my desk with your name on it and you didn’t say anything for a full day. That’s about what happened, Danny. Tell me if I’m wrong.”

Danny shifts uncomfortably and keeps rubbing at his forehead. “I tried to get them to stall the form until I told you.”

“Your number one reaction should have been telling me, Danny. We saw each other twenty-four seven. You could have done it over breakfast or in the car on the way to work or while we watched the game.” Steve sounds really calm. He always sounds really calm, like he always has things in hand and Danny’s just the overemotional one who can’t keep it together.

What’s he supposed to say to this? It’s his own fault for thinking that he could get away with it, but it would’ve happened one way or the other.

So Danny goes back to his default response in this situation. “Steve, c’mon, you know how my life goes. Rachel moves, Grace goes with her, and I follow. She’s my baby girl, Steve,” he says, helplessly. “There isn’t any other way this could’ve gone.”

There’s just a slight catch in his tone and someone experienced in reading Danny would know that there is a different way this could have gone, but that way involves Danny being so selfish that he takes away a great leader from Honolulu and he is not that guy. He is _not_.

It doesn’t matter that there’s a little voice that tells him that he deserves to be selfish because he lives his life being selfless – catching the bad guys, putting them away, living anywhere in the world just for his kid – and he deserves _something_. He deserves to have something he wants and he’s not afraid to admit that he wants Steve.

He wants Steve to pick up and leave Hawaii for him.

So, in short, Danny Williams is an idiot. He’s aware of this. Rachel makes sure he’s aware of it on a daily basis.

With Steve so far away and Danny settling into a new life here, he’s going to take what he can get and right now that constitutes a phone call. “Seriously, Steve, what’s up, what happened?” Danny tries again, settling back on the couch with the phone tucked in against his neck. It takes a little more prodding, but inevitably Steve just starts talking.

It’s like a dam has burst. Once he starts, he keeps going. He tells Danny all about the Governor’s visit and about the latest bad guys. He spends at least twenty minutes ranting about something his sister’s done and then tells Danny that Kono hurt her knee again on the Pipeline.

“I told her to stay off that thing,” Danny kvetches with a sigh. “Why don’t you listen to me more often? There would be less injuries if I got listened to, is all I’m saying.”

“Yes, dear,” is Steve’s automatic reply and Danny grins.

They might not be face to face, but it’s like a little piece of home over the phone. “Hey,” Danny says, grabbing a pillow to get comfortable as he lies down, closing his eyes to let Steve’s voice wash over him as he relaxes after a day at the office. “Keep talking to me.”

He falls asleep to the sound of Steve’s voice and in the morning, all Garcia can talk about is how glad he is that Danny finally got laid.

“Fuck off, man,” Danny complains sharply. “You know I haven’t had _anyone_ in my place since I got here.”

“Whatever it is,” Garcia says, compiling the files for the day, “keep it up, Williams. You actually look like you’re not minutes away from a stroke. So, whatever you ate or whatever game you watched or whatever you did, do it again. We’ve already solved three cases, you and me. Can’t have you stroking out on the job. What’s gonna happen to my success rate then?”

“It’ll plummet,” Danny takes great delight in saying. “Right to the bottom of the ocean, my friend. Because this is all Williams,” he says, smug and glad to finally have a partner that understands due process and that when you’re interrogating a witness, torture techniques should not appear anywhere on the agenda.

Danny refuses to admit it, but there are times in the middle of those interrogations that he maybe misses Steve a _lot_. Not because of how much quicker Steve tends to pull information out of people, just because he misses showing off what a cop is actually supposed to do.

Yeah. That’s all it is.

*

On a Wednesday afternoon, Danny gets the third best shock of his life. He arrives back at the station with lunch in hand and a hell of a complaint about the pizza place they’ve been going to. When he checks in at the front desk, he’s told that there’s a delinquent waiting for him at his desk.

“You’re shitting me,” he says, grinning as he practically drops the box of pizza on Garcia’s desk and takes long strides across the office. He makes it to his desk and doesn’t even wait a second to haul the blond woman right up from the chair and into his arms. “How’d the fun McGarrett find me first?” he wonders, hugging her tightly. “Seriously, I’ve been expecting Steve to break into my apartment for months now.”

He’s not joking. He wishes he were, but he’s not. Every morning he wakes up and half-expects to see Steve there to help Danny finish their unfinished _whatever_ , but he never is.

It’s good to see Mary. It’s _really_ good and Danny sometimes forgets that she’s just down the coastline. She looks pretty damn happy to see him back and she looks _good_. No hint of guilt in her expression, no bruises from wayward kidnappings.

“Funny you should say that,” she says when they sit down again to talk. “I just got back from the island.”

“Tell me you’re not here on Five-O check-up business,” Danny says with a pleading groan.

“Chin worries,” Mary says evenly, but there’s a smirk playing around her lips. “And my brother…well…”

Danny’s been getting the feeling that Steve’s not in a good place. Sure, he gets told that everything’s fine, but once in a while Danny goes into the HPD database and he finds a string of complaints from suspects about Five-O brutality. So, you know, nothing out of the ordinary, but the numbers have gone up just enough to be a worry.

“You want some coffee?”

Mary checks her watch. “It’s two. I want a drink.”

Which is how Danny ends up drinking at a bar with McGarrett’s sister at three o’clock in the afternoon while Danny half-pays attention to the game and listens to Mary discuss the old boyfriend who’s now an ex and the new boyfriend who used to be an ex.

“Please, don’t mind me saying,” Danny murmurs between pints, “but your love life is terrifying and complicated.”

She scoffs. “Like yours is any better? You do know Steve has a picture of you in his bedroom, right?”

“That, I did not know, no, I did not know that,” Danny says, a little shocked by this turn of information, frankly. “Where in the bedroom? I mean, are we talking about hearts drawn around me pinned to the back of the door? Is it in his pillowcase next to his Uzi or is this just one of those pictures with darts in it?”

Mary just smiles in an enigmatic way. Danny hates that smile.

“You learned that one from Steve.”

“He’s not bad for a few things,” she says and leans over the bar with her whole upper torso. “Bartender! Another round for me and my…” She turns and narrows her eyes as she looks at Danny. “Hell, why not, he’s my buddy now,” she says.

“You say that,” Danny says, licking the foam from off his upper lip, “but I am telling you right now, you commit any felonies, I am not cutting you loose. I am not that easily bought.”

She smiles at him and this one, this one he has also seen in the vicinity of Steve McGarrett’s face. It’s mischievous and daring and cuts just a little too dangerously on the side of her doing something that Danny’s not going to like. And as opposed to her brother’s insane daredevil smiles, Mary’s has just an edge of pride and smugness to it.

“Steve wants to know how you’re doing,” she finally says. “Not that he asked or said it in as many words, but his first question was whether or not you were dating anyone and then he asked about your knee and a bunch of other things. He thinks that you’re not honest with him.”

“He’s secretly a nag, isn’t he? He’s kept it secret this long, but he’s a big old worrywart nag,” Danny says. “I feel this. I feel this to my very bones.”

“Well, after Mom…” Mary presses her lips tightly together and suddenly Danny feels bad. He feels like the kid who puts gum in a little girl’s hair as a joke and she starts sobbing right in his face. That’s generally about how he feels. “Dad shipped us both off. It’s not like either of us really figured out how you’re supposed to act. So, I maybe got a little irresponsible and Steve…”

“Oh, trust me, I know all about the head wound your brother suffered to be the way he is,” Danny says with great sureness, using his hands to gesture all over the place. “And I know all about those primal pack instincts. Protect your family, grr, all that. There is a _look_ he gets, it is like a puppy with a toy. A very possessive puppy that will not let anyone hurt his toys and we,” he says, gesturing between them, “we are those toys. We are those squeaky, abused, well-worn toys.”

Mary stares into her pint of beer for a very long moment before looking at Danny. “I’m not a squeaky toy,” is all she says.

“Respect a metaphor, will you?” Danny says, but he leans over and nudges her with his shoulder, sending her swaying slightly. He’s happy. He’s not _giddy_ because Danny is suspect as to whether he could ever be such a thing, but having beers with Mary with the knowledge that he’s picking up his kid in a couple days, that makes him happy. “Besides, I’m the toy with the prize inside. I’ve got layers, I am deep,” he says.

“So,” Mary says. “Are you dating anyone?”

“Tell Steve no, no, I am not dating anyone. And then tell him that my knee is fine. It is _extra_ fine because there are no maniacs injuring me on a weekly basis in their refusal to conduct proper police procedure. And uh, and what else does he want to know?”

“I’m pretty sure Steve won’t be happy until you send him an hour-by-hour log of your day,” Mary says with such a sad tone, like even she understands how lost a cause Steve is. “That includes when you get off.”

Danny had been drinking some very good beer when she’d said that. Very good beer that is no longer any kind of decent beer because he’s spit most of it up on the bar and there’s a good portion of it on his shirt.

She’s grinning away when he turns to glare at her. He picks up his soaking tie and runs his palm over it. “This was a good tie. This was a _silk_ tie.”

“It’s California, why are you still wearing ties?”

He pokes a finger right in her face because no. No, this will not happen here. Not again. “This is the mainland. This is what a detective looks like and, unlike in Honolulu, if you walk into SDPD, you will see a number of men wearing ties and women in suits. I have returned to the land of sanity and now my tie is ruined because you think Steve cares about my jacking off habits.”

She shrugs and slides her glass from hand to hand. “I’m just saying what I know. If you want to know when Steve does it…”

Danny plugs his fingers in his ears. “Not listening! I am not listening! Sisters should not know this kind of information about their brothers.” He keeps making loud noises until Mary forcibly reaches over and pries his hand away by the wrist. “You two have an incredibly creepy relationship.”

“We had a unique upbringing,” she agrees. “I’ll tell Steve that he’s being an idiot paranoid jackass. In exchange, you and I do this at least once a week. I kinda can see what my brother sees in you. You’re fun,” she says.

Danny’s not sure that he likes being _fun_ as labeled by Mary McGarrett.

“And also?” she says, after the bartender takes away the empty glasses. “I don’t think you’re the squeaky toy with the prize inside.” Danny doesn’t even want to know where this is going, but he makes a gesture to encourage her to finish. She just slings her arm around his shoulders and brings him close, like she’s about to tell him a secret. “You’re the big plushy toy that he wants to hump.”

“You are _horrifying_!” Danny accuses, but he’s grinning, laughing, and he’s got three beers in him. “Genuinely, honestly horrifying. One day, I am going to tell your brother that you have a filthy, filthy mind and he’s gonna do some SEAL thing and cleanse it all out of you using good dental hygiene routines or…or something, I don’t know.” Danny is practically pink, but he’s still laughing until his stomach starts to ache from it.

He’s definitely had worse afternoons than this.

*

Danny gets the second best shock of his life four months after he leaves Oahu for San Diego. He’s been joking for months that he’s going to wake up and Steve is going to be in his apartment to kidnap him back home. Garcia gets a good laugh out of it – Garcia now better understands Steve ever since the day Danny broke and started telling stories – but it’s always been just a joke.

At least, it’s a joke until one Wednesday morning he wakes up to light spilling in past the curtains and a solid presence in the bedside chair just _watching_ him.

“Okay!” Danny spits out the word in a shocked shout, his heart already racing. “I’m armed!”

“You’re armed while you sleep?” is Steve’s incredulous retort. “Danny, I don’t think that’s safe.”

Danny fumbles to lean over to the bedside drawer, grabbing a knife in its case and showing it pointedly to Steve before shoving it right back in the drawer, slamming it shut. Steve is just _sitting there_ , like it hasn’t been four months, like watching someone sleep isn’t strange, like it’s okay to just sit there and not even look like you need to breathe.

“McGarrett, you can call the Boy Scouts and tell them you earned your stalking badge,” Danny says tiredly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You give those Twilight vampires something to aspire to.”

Steve looks absolutely blank and clueless at once.

“Don’t worry, Grace will explain it to you some day.”

Danny tries to shake the fuzz out of his brain and works around to the real question.

“Steve, what the hell are you doing here?” he asks. Yeah, he’d always joked about this, but seeing it actually happening is a little bit terrifying. It makes him wonder if maybe something’s gone wrong or if somebody’s hurt. He can’t even control his fear once it gets started. “Kono? Chin? Is it…”

“Danny, everyone is fine,” Steve says. He sounds calm and casual. He sounds like he’s going to start asking Danny about his day and it is _too early_ for this.

Danny rubs at his forehead and tries to figure out what he’s supposed to do in this situation. He pinches himself just to make sure it isn’t a dream – it isn’t and also, he’s pretty sure there shouldn’t be that much skin on his arm to pinch so maybe Mary’s right about him needing to lose weight.

“Danny?” Steven asks again, sounding hopeful.

“Steve, I need you to…” He waves in the generic direction of the air. “I need for you to be…” It’s so _early_ and he still needs to go to work today. “I need for you to be not here right now. Just for a little. Okay?”

Steve doesn’t answer. He just stays right where he’s sitting and keeps staring at Danny.

“Okay,” Danny answers for him, leaning over to grab his wallet. He digs out a couple of bills and presses them into Steve’s hand. Danny sends Steve for breakfast to the bagel place down the street and when he’s _sure_ that Steve’s gone, he fumbles for his cell and immediately calls Chin. “What the hell, you couldn’t have warned me? Said, I don’t know, ‘Hey Danny, so guess what, you’re probably going to wake up and Steve is going to be _watching you sleep_ , like a maniac’. What is wrong with saying that! What is wrong with making that phone call!”

“Danny, calm down,” Chin says. He can hear Kono in the background, chirping a bright, ‘Hi Danny!’ at him.

“No, no, no, no ‘Hi Danny’,” Danny warns, waving his finger at the phone and wishing that they could see him, that they could see how very not okay with this whole thing he is. “You two are in so much trouble. I could have had a heart attack! Poor heart health runs in the Williams family, waking up to Steve McGarrett watching you could very well be the leading cause of death in Hawaii! That deserves warning.”

“If you’re worried about your heart,” Kono says, her voice just slightly distant, like she’s leaning over Chin’s shoulder, “maybe you should cut down on the sugary stuff. Mary told us that you put on a couple pounds.”

“I hate you,” Danny says, shaking his head. “I hate you so much. I am not visiting for your birthday anymore and you are not getting a nice new gun that I hand-picked for you.”

“Love you too, Danny,” Kono says, just as bright as ever. “Look,” she continues, sobering up. “Steve made us _promise_ not to tell you. And truth be told, we’re both still trying to process the whole thing.”

“Process, what process?” Danny says with a scowl. “Steve got on a plane, he flew away, and then he’ll come back and sit in your bedrooms to wake you up and scare you half to death because it’s like a sport to him. There, you’re processed.”

There’s a very long span of silence.

“…what did the lunkhead do?” Danny asks with a sigh, brushing the curtains back from the window to make sure that Steve isn’t back yet. He’s a little bit scared, he won’t lie. Steve has a habit of doing things, of saying ‘I’ll be back’ and pulling grenades out of _his_ car (which is Steve’s car now, seeing as Danny didn’t want to bring it with him to San Diego).

“Well,” Kono draws out the word. “Chin is the new head of Five-O.”

Danny can feel his heart clench and tighten, like the inevitable attack is coming now. “What did he do?” Danny growls.

“He quit,” Chin says, finally speaking up. “He called the governor in order to transfer the task force to me, told us that we weren’t to call you on threat of torture by _extremely_ bad music, and gave the keys to his father’s house to Mary.”

“Mary, what are you talking about, Mary, she’s still here, we had dinner just the other night!” Danny is starting to get ready to rant. By the time that Steve gets back, Danny’s going to be in full explosion mode. “Okay, okay,” he says, taking a deep breath and working towards a kind of calm. “I can handle this. I can handle Steve having a nervous breakdown and coming to my bedroom in the middle of the night. I am a professional with dealing with Steve’s brand of crazy.”

“Danny, if it’s any consolation, he’s probably not going to kill you,” Chin says.

“You’re so helpful. I can barely count the ways in which you are being helpful except that I can and they are numbered on one hand, one,” Danny deadpans. “Okay, scram, shoo, get, he’s coming back and you have bad guys to catch. Make sure you book ‘em just for me.”

“We wouldn’t think of anything else,” Kono promises. “Good luck, Danny.”

“Thanks, guys,” Danny says softly, hanging up and sliding his phone back on the dresser.

Steve is coming back up the walk and Danny is steeling himself for a knock-down drag-out conversation with no victor and a lot of spoils. At the last minute, he looks at what he’s been wearing – a white tank top and a well-worn pair of blue pajama pants – and throws on a button-down to try and make himself look just a little more presentable.

He’s left the door unlocked and it’s mere minutes before Steve comes inside and all of Danny’s well-thought plans go down the drain.

“You quit your job,” is all Danny can get out when Steve gets back to the bedroom. He’d intended to start with something else. Maybe he’d grab the food or maybe he’d make small talk, but it’s like the words have leapt out past his mouth before Danny could even do anything about it. “For me?” That’s what Danny’s not exactly clear of.

“Danny, listen…”

“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Danny mutters under his breath.

“I got shot.”

“You got _what_?” Danny explodes. “Are you kidding me? So not only did you quit your job, leave Hawaii, and practically scare the fuck out of me in the morning, you didn’t call to tell me that you got shot! What’s the matter with you!” Danny shouts, smacking Steve upside the back of his head. “I know it’s been different without me there, but did you lose what’s left of your mind? Is there that little sanity left that things like getting shot just slip away and get lost in the fabric of the universe like wayward socks and forgetting to call your grandmother on the weekend?”

Steve looks a bit hurt, actually, but Danny’s not backing down.

“Where did you get shot! When!”

“I got shot a week ago, it was just a through and through,” Steve protests, his eyes widening with every word, like he thinks that looking like a puppy is gonna do something about Danny’s mood.

He is sorely mistaken. _Sorely_ mistaken.

“Thing is, Danny, I was alone. I got shot and I was alone until the ambulance came and that’s just not right. You were supposed to be there with me. You were supposed to use your stupid tie to try and stop the bleeding and then make a couple of jokes about how Superman can’t die from a bullet, but I got sirens in the distance. I got a crushing and overwhelming blanket of silence,” Steve says, putting the paper bag down on the table. “Things haven’t been right since you left. I haven’t been right.”

“Steve, babe,” Danny breaks in here, just to clarify. He waves a hand around, crossing his arms under his torso. “No offense, but I’ve always had this sneaking suspicion that you have _never_ been right.”

“Hawaii isn’t right anymore and the last time that happened, I got on a plane and I left,” Steve says, so full of calm and reason. Danny suspects that even in Steve’s worst times, there is an ocean of calm just waiting to take over again. “So I made it right.”

“Okay,” Danny says, quietly. He nods his head like there’s a private beat he’s setting it to. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We are gonna have a discussion sometime about proper greeting protocol,” Danny says, starting to button up his shirt. “But yes, _okay_.” Steve grins and it’s like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, it’s so bright and beautiful. He steps forward and takes hold of Danny’s shirt for him, buttoning it up the rest of the way before smoothing his palm out over the front.

“Okay,” Steve says, chipper as anything.

 _Okay_ , Danny breathes out one last time when Steve leaves the room and Danny is left to process this for himself.

*

Steve moves in that afternoon. There’s no conversation about hotels. One minute Danny had a nice two-bedroom apartment and the next, Steve’s moved his boxes into the storage space and made a groove for his ass in Danny’s bed.

Danny should really have expected it, but he still feels a strangled sensation gripping him when he sees Steve walk into the precinct one day with two coffees in hand. He must go as pale as a sheet because Garcia is looking like he wants to get 911 on the phone to call an ambulance over. “Williams, you okay?”

“Yeah, but, Garcia, remember all that stuff I told you about McGarrett?”

“Yeah, the crazy ninja asshole with no regard for authority?”

Danny lets out a choked laugh. He’s got about five seconds before Steve’s within hearing distance. “Yeah, so I never told you any of that. And uh, I might have neglected to fill in a couple of blanks on that report that I’ll tell you about later,” he says, rushing the last words to get them out.

He plasters a bright grin on his face and tries to act like this is normal for Steve to just be dropping in on him at work. “Danno,” Steve greets, handing him a coffee. “It’s two milks and no sugar,” he warns. Typically, Danny’s coffee order runs closer to the lines of three creams, four sugars.

“Aw, come on,” Danny gripes. “Steve.”

“You’ve gained weight,” Steve says sternly, setting Danny’s coffee on his desk. “And you already had a couple of pounds to take off around your waistline. It’s an indicator of possible health problems, Danny.”

“Jesus, next thing you know, you’ll be calling my mother to get her on my ass about…” Danny trails off when he sees the guilty look on Steve’s face. “I swear to god, McGarrett, this is going to be the first exhibit in your murder trial.”

He finally remembers Garcia, glancing back to see his new partner watching the back and forth with amusement.

“Williams, I think I got a read on those blanks,” Garcia says with an apologetic shrug. He lifts himself out of his seat and leans forward, a hand extended to Steve. “I’m Anthony Garcia. I’ve been trying to corral this man ever since you cut him loose from Hawaii.”

Steve smiles that half-crooked grin and shakes Garcia’s hand and Danny can already sense that this is going to go poorly. It’s like Rachel and Steve all over again. Steve has basic social problems right up until the minute that someone is important in Danny’s life. Then he’s all perfect charm and handsome gentleman.

It’s just so _irritating_ at the same time that it’s kind of charming.

Danny somehow becomes a third wheel with two men who are _his_ partners. They talk about his life and shop-talk and Danny somehow ends up doing the paperwork for the last collar while Steve and Garcia laugh long and hard about old war stories.

And if Danny’s not mistaken, there’s even a conversation going on over there about ‘book ‘em, Danno’. “Hey!” Danny says sharply, looking up from where he’s jabbing dots on the page to make sure the paperwork is all done. “Both of you, you need time apart and I need my partner.”

Steve’s off the desk before you can say ‘AK-47’ and Danny waves his pen in the air like it’s a magic wand. “Not you, idiot, my _partner_ ,” he says again with only a heavy amount of inflection to make the difference.

There’s a real pinched look to Steve’s face, but Garcia just flashes an apologetic smile and Danny steals back his partner before Steve can do something _Steve-like_ and convince Garcia to join a task-force or anything. “We’re going to interrogate a suspect,” Danny calls to Steve as they’re leaving. “Don’t you have that class thing on the base?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Steve just sits there, perched on Danny’s desk with his arms crossed. It tightens the polo shirt around his torso and makes Danny’s gaze linger just a moment too long. “I’ll see you at home?”

“Yeah,” Danny confirms with a hand lifted in the air. He thanks Garcia for holding the door as he leaves and is so busy thinking about Steve in that shirt that he doesn’t notice the unnatural silence between them for ten minutes. By then, he’s all the way past wary. “What?”

“In all your stories, you didn’t mention he was your person.”

“My what?” Danny scoffs. “My person? Is that the new ridiculous California thing? My _person_? Steve is my pain in the ass, of course, sure, and occasionally he’s good for a hostage situation seeing as he keeps a lot of weapons on him. And you know, the whole holding his breath thing can come in handy.”

Garcia, fuck him, just smirks.

“You have a kid,” Danny accuses. “You are going to hell for thinking what you just did!”

“Hey, man, you have no proof I’m thinking anything.”

“Just like any other day,” Danny says, feeling smug that at least he got that in. Garcia shoves at his shoulder and they get in the Mustang to go hunt down their latest suspects for an interrogation.

Danny feels a little looser after that. It’s like someone took the heavy boulder of tension from off his shoulders and pitched it far, far away. His zennish calm does not last long because scumbags are scumbags regardless of where in the world they are and two of their suspects are really impolite in their trying to shoot him to death.

By the time he and Garcia are ready to call it quits for the night, Danny has bloodstains on his shirt from the suspect, his vest has got frayed threads from getting stuck on rusty nails at the pier, and he is exhausted – flat out exhausted. He keeps touching the area on his neck where the bullet went by, unconvinced that he hasn’t been shot, and gives Garcia a pitiful look.

“Go home, man,” Garcia says. “I got this one. But you owe me next time.”

“I owe you everything in the world,” Danny agrees, but he doesn’t need anything more. “You can catch a ride?”

“I’ll find a ride. Go home to your breathless wonder.”

Danny reverses the Mustang expertly while flipping Garcia the finger. It’s a talent no boy from New Jersey grows up without.

When Danny gets back to the apartment complex, he’s a little surprised to see Steve is back from work earlier than usual. Danny’s not sure if this is good news or if the world is about to end and Steve gets the night off as a result. He drops his keys in the bowl at the front hallway and wanders inside to find Steve setting the table for dinner. That, in and of itself, is a bit worrying. Steve doesn’t tend to cook unless it’s one of those ‘fresh from the ocean’ things, but here he is with plates and cooking and candles.

“…Steve? Is someone coming over that I don’t know about?” Danny asks, sliding his palm up his torso until he comes to the knot of his tie, loosening it with steady fingers.

Steve closes the distance between them and takes hold of Danny’s hands with his own, prying them away from the tie. He replaces them quickly with his own, his breath ghosting past Danny’s neck and becoming incredibly distracting.

“It’s just us, Danny,” Steve says, sliding his fingers deftly through the knot of the tie and prying it loose. “You looked _happy_ at work.”

“Yeah, well, straight-up homicide cases put me in a groove,” Danny says, standing his ground and not moving as Steve winds the fabric of the tie out from under the collar of his shirt, popping it up like he’s some remnant of the eighties. “I tell you we got a hundred percent solve rate, Garcia and I?”

“You seem to work well together,” Steve murmurs. The tie is wrapped around his palm, but he hasn’t made a single move to step away.

Danny glances up and tries to read the temperature here. “Yeah, we do,” he agrees, just a bit wary. “You jealous of that?” He’s not even trying to get a rise out of Steve. He genuinely can’t tell if that stoic look on Steve’s face is ‘I’m horrifyingly jealous of your new partnership’ or ‘I’m glad to see you do so well at work’ or maybe just ‘maybe I should have put more garlic on the bread’.

Steve smiles in such a calm way that Danny’s thinking maybe somebody spiked his tea with drugs and that’s why he’s home so early. “It was weird to see at first,” he says with a shrug. “But I’m not jealous. Because you come home to me,” Steve continues, sliding the tie down Danny’s neck and starting to unbutton his shirt. He gets one, then two buttons off. He ought to stop where it’s appropriate, but he keeps going for the third. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to broach this, but it always seems to slip away. Now that I know you’re happy here, I think it’s time.”

Danny’s heart is making a run for it. It’s going to leap out of his chest and leave him a bloody and yammering mess.

“You live with me,” Danny says, his voice low and throaty. Somehow, Steve has managed to find a way to close the distance between them, even though Danny would swear on his life that they were out of distance to close. “Steve, you live with me and Grace is blocks away and she knows you’re here. You make this into just a sex thing or you fly the coop when you get bored of me,” Danny lectures in a patient and even tone. It’s his ‘I am so very serious about this that I can’t even pretend to be angry’ voice. “If you do that, I will have no problem calling the Governor of Hawaii and respectfully asking her to redact your ass.”

Steve slides his palms down and unbuttons another of Danny’s buttons, leaving only two between him and total shirtlessness.

“You’re serious about this, huh?” Danny breathes out.

“I came here for _you_ ,” is all Steve needs to say for Danny to get with the program.

Danny just shoves at Steve to get him going in the direction of the bedroom. “Dinner’s gonna be cold, babe,” he announces, another tense vice on his chest seemingly released just like that. “I got things I need to do to you. So many things, you have no idea.”

*

Sometime over the last six months, Danny’s life has been kidnapped all over again. He would’ve said it was impossible to happen twice, but impossible is not a word that Steve McGarrett knows.

They get in the habit of having weekly dinners with Mary on the deck of their little apartment. Steve barbecues while Danny fetches drinks and it’s a little bit like having family again. Mary’s as good as his sister, he won’t deny that. They’re having one of those barbecues when Mary comes inside to help cook the side dishes with Danny. Steve is busy drinking beer and doing his thing outside with the grill.

“I got this,” Danny says with a look of confidence as he gestures to the spinach dip he’s putting together. “Old Williams family secret, we are _good_ with an oven and an apron.”

“You’ll have to show me pictures,” Mary says with a slow smile. She casts a glance over her shoulder. “I wanted to ask you something about Steve.”

“Is he a lost cause?” Danny jumps right in without actually waiting for her to ask anything. “Yes, I’m sorry, but your brother is always going to have an idiotically happy reaction to things going boom. We tried to find a cure, but he’s too far gone.”

Mary just rolls her eyes. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“That is total bullshit, but go on,” Danny encourages, a big grin on his face.

“Is my brother happy?” is what she has to ask.

And Danny, well, Danny’s big goofy grin probably puts him in the doghouse of happiness more than it does Steve, but Danny likes to think that it does the trick of answering. It’s enough for Mary, who comes around the kitchen island to nudge him with her hip and poke a finger into the dip before sucking it off.

“Not bad,” she says with approval. “Maybe I’ll tell Steve to keep you.”

He nudges her right back and they spend the hour bake-time joking back and forth about her being taller than him, ties in California, and Steve’s unfortunate hair in high school. No matter how the night varies, it always ends the same – the three of them tipsy, Danny and Steve sprawled out on the couch while Mary takes the chair, and with Steve’s fingers absently stroking Danny’s neck.

“You two are gross,” she accuses, sticking out her tongue as she sprawls forward and puts an empty beer bottle on the table with eight others. Her hair falls messily over her shoulder as she levels a look at them.

Steve’s fingers have progressed to stroking down Danny’s back. Danny’s exhausted from his day and the beer and his eyes aren’t even staying open anymore.

“You’re the one who wants me happy,” Steve says, accusing her lazily.

“Yeah, but can’t you wait til I go to bed?”

She takes the guest room like she always does and the minute she closes the door, Steve gets that Look on his face that he always gets when he has a couple of beers in him and he has an idea. Danny doesn’t even put up a fight anymore and just shakes his head.

“Do what you’re gonna do,” Danny says.

Which is how he ends up pressed against the wall, legs wrapped around Steve’s waist, gagged, and fucked by a man who has _entirely_ too much strength in his body for his own good.

When they’re not entertaining Mary, they sometimes have Garcia and some of the guys from the department over. Somehow, along the way, the wives and partners started to come over with them. It’s all Garcia’s fault because he got one glimpse of Danny and Steve bickering over whether a sauce had to be refrigerated or not and said, “Next time, I’ll bring the wife.”

It’s a Friday when the kids come over with all the wives and their small apartment is so full of people that Danny’s actually afraid he’s going to step on someone’s baby before he knows it. He escapes the wrath of his book club by getting back to the kitchen and clasping his hands together in prayer. “Steven, beer me,” he begs. “I need a beer more than I have ever needed anything in my life, including that thing you did to me the other night.”

Danny’s learned that talking about sex in a public place makes Steve pull this really funny face that has a real effect on Danny’s libido. It’s both amusing and dangerous at once, but Danny knows he’s gonna behave, what with fifteen people under their roof and most of them underage.

Steve has a quiet look of panic on his face, like all the noise and all people is leading them in a dangerous direction.

“Okay, Steve, I know this is hard to believe,” Danny says as he bends over to fish out a new bag of chips to put out. “But the toddler playing on the coffee table is not an assassin from the ‘Stan that’s here for you,” Danny says, nodding his head. He bends over a little further, muttering to himself about salsa, which is when he feels his ass being grabbed. “If that’s your sister, we need to have words.”

“Danny, downward dog is always gonna get you this kind of attention,” says Steve, who is currently pressing the whole front of his torso to Danny’s back and breathing the words out against his neck, lips pressed snugly just beneath his earlobe. “Bend with your knees.”

“What and not get this kinda treatment?” Danny’s pretty thrilled, to be perfectly honest. He straightens up, pressing a bottle of salsa into Steve’s hands. “We got houseguests. You are disallowed from locking us in the bedroom.”

When Steve opens his mouth, Danny flicks his forehead.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Steve says heatedly.

“I’m sure I owed you one,” Danny promises, snatching the salsa back and pressing a kiss on Steve’s cheek. Just before he goes back out to feed the hungry masses, Steve remembers to hand him a beer and Danny feels this momentary lapse of judgment where he thinks he could forgive Steve a lot of things just for that.

The entertaining is good for them. It keeps them in the loop of things happening at the precinct and it’s not so much of a secret that Steve and Danny live together and in addition to being former partners are also current _partners_. Occasionally there’s someone who’ll put up a fuss, but Garcia’s pretty aggressive when it comes to reminding those troublemakers that anyone who has a problem with Danny has a problem with the department.

The ugly rumor mill tends to die down for a while after Garcia gives his _polite_ reminders.

It doesn’t hurt that Steve has his own work that comes with a hefty amount of respect. Steve spends his days on the Naval Base. He’s thrown his hat into the ring to teach some of the more _insane_ courses they offer, but he also does his share of work for the country. Most of the time, Danny doesn’t get more of an answer than, “It’s classified,” but Steve does things like let the papers slip slightly so that Danny can see the headings.

“Are you seriously doing cryptography for the government?” Danny finally breaks one night and asks when he finds Steve with a stack of papers in bed, glasses sitting low on his nose. “Steven, what is this, the Cold War?”

“Your lack of knowledge about current affairs, frankly, scares me some days, Danny,” Steve says distractedly, reaching over to pull the covers back and let Danny into bed with him. Danny gets in with his case files, wearing a full set of pajamas and a pair of socks, and props himself up with the pillows. “Also, it’s classified.”

“I’m gonna start doing shots for every time you tell me that,” Danny warns. “And then you’re gonna pay for my liver transplant.”

Danny shifts until he finds a spot that’s comfortable, which mostly involves splaying out reports on Steve’s hipbones and scribbling notes when he needs to. Every now and again Steve twitches and Danny has to hide a grin by ducking his head.

“I’m ticklish, okay?” Steve says defensively.

“I didn’t say a word, Steve, I think it’s adorable that your kryptonite is tickling. Good thing the bad guys in Honolulu didn’t know that an overeager kitten could fell you,” Danny says with a smirk, signing off on one more case file before stacking them on the dresser beside the bed. He steals Steve’s work from him, prying his glasses off and putting those aside too. “Sleep,” he insists, when Steve starts looking like he’s expecting an amorous interruption. “We stayed up _way_ too late last night when you found my old high school pictures…”

“I regret nothing.”

“…and you have that thing in the morning, the deep-sea dive or whatever. Bed,” Danny says again, a little sterner this time.

Steve looks like he’s ready to launch one final protest and so Danny hauls out the big guns.

“Go to bed and tomorrow when you come home on your freakish adrenaline high, we’ll have sex and you can get me so riled up that I make our perfectly nice neighbors think we’re ungodly heathens,” he says.

Steve seems to take that as good enough because he settles down under the covers and slings an arm around Danny’s torso to haul him closer. “Promise?” he asks suspiciously as though Danny’s done this kind of thing before – twice, yes, admittedly.

“Yeah, Steve, swear on my glorious locks of hair,” Danny agrees.

He leans over to turn the lamp off and gets settled right back into the space that Steve’s left open for him. Being held captive by a Navy SEAL isn’t exactly so bad when their favorite method of torture seems to be really clingy sleeping.

Danny can deal with that kind of sleep deprivation provided that he gets to kick Steve in the shins when he starts snoring. There are some things that no amount of love can let you forgive, and a night spent listening to a lumberjack sawing away is so beyond the boundaries, as far as Danny’s concerned.

*

Danny gets home from seeing Grace and finds Steve waiting for him with a beer and a gentle smile on his face. Danny takes the beer, chugs half of it down, and lets his attention drift away at least for just a second. He _hates_ this feeling. He hates coming home and being away from Grace for another week. He’s worked out new custody arrangements where he gets to see her one night a week in addition to every other weekend, but it still isn’t enough.

“You know,” Steve says, after the appropriate amount of time has passed and he knows that Danny is ready to talk. Danny wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere hidden in their apartment, there is a half-started Danny Williams Manual that Steve pulls out to consult and contribute to on a constant basis. “I think maybe I get a little bit of what you were feeling in Hawaii.”

“Yeah?” Danny’s not even close to as drunk as he’d like to be, so his confusion is purely because Steve isn’t making any damn sense. “How’s that?”

“I kind of hate Rachel.” Danny’s eyes widen and he’s practically laughing because Steve, the man who wanted to have tea the very first time he met Danny’s ex-wife, that very same man, is now professing to hate the woman.

This is gonna be good. “Yeah?” Danny replies, bemused. “Why’s that, babe?”

“I don’t mean that I hate her. I don’t. She’s an incredible woman who raised a beautiful daughter.” And there’s the respectful Steve that Danny knows has just been lingering around the corner. “But I hate that she moved, because it means that she moved you with her.”

Danny’s starting to get it.

“And I had to come after you.”

There’s a heavy pause now as Danny tries to calculate what the next move is. He could roll with this and continue on a casual note. He could pull out a couple new beers and commiserate about just how much Rachel can make their lives hell because she’s loyal to her new husband. The thing is, Danny thinks, the thing is that he has to stop and think about this for a minute because the issue is a lot deeper than just ‘man, can Rachel suck and I’m not talking about the good way, although…’

Danny leans forward, pressing his palms on his thighs and splaying his fingers out. “Steve, you didn’t have to follow me.” Danny hadn’t been anything more than a partner on the verge of something else. It’s not _exactly_ the same situation as Danny and Grace.

Steve didn’t have to follow Danny across the ocean. But he did anyway and that says so much without even putting anything into words.

“Danny, ask Chin and Kono sometime,” Steve says, so sober, so serious, so _Steve_ that it practically places a pain in Danny’s chest that he thinks he can only make go away by kissing Steve as hard as he can. “Ask them what happened when you left.”

“I’m guessing,” Danny says, his tone light in an attempt to keep the mood up, “I’m guessing maybe you were a pain in everyone’s ass. I’m guessing you probably shot someone that you shouldn’t have shot. And I’m guessing you tried to use my absence to put new policies into effect that everyone hates. People need coffee in the morning, Steve, you can’t just ban coffee!”

“In the quantities that the rest of you drank in, yes I could,” Steve says with that serious and determined look on his face. “You would have lived longer if I got my way.”

“No coffee bans,” Danny says sharply. “But yeah, Steve, I’m guessing you weren’t a real peach to live with.” He debates his next move here and in the end, he thinks that the only way this is going to work is if he goes with total honesty. “Listen, babe,” Danny says, turning on the couch so he’s facing Steve. “That feeling’s not gonna go away, so I’m about to give you some advice. Be a normal human being and nod right now so I can pretend you’re at least listening.”

Steve nods -- _good boy_ \-- and Danny is at least slightly assuaged.

“One day, you’re gonna wake up and realize that if you don’t figure out what to do with all those, those feelings,” he says, balling his hands up tight in a shadow mimicry of the anger he used to feel, “then it’s just gonna devour you whole. So one day I realized that I’m the one who made the choice. I chose to come after Grace and yeah, it makes me a good dad, it makes me a great dad,” he allows. “But it still means I chose. I chose it, Steve. Wasn’t Rachel’s fault for moving on. She just got there first.”

So now, now comes the part that involves Steve.

“Look, Steve,” Danny says. “I know your life was pretty shitty when I left, but you still chose to come out here. And I’m giving you the option to go back. I am not that kind of girl, Steve McGarrett, that’s gonna cry if you go. I will not shed a single tear because, quite frankly, I am sure you’ve made a dozen girls cry in your lifetime because your special hunk-love wasn’t bestowed upon them and I refuse to contribute to that.”

Steve is getting a pinched look on his face and he mouths ‘hunk-love’ very slowly. Danny’s going to lose the point if he doesn’t hustle to get it back on track.

“What I am saying!” he says, using his hands, “is that you are not bound here by me. You get to choose now, McGarrett, just like I chose to accept that I’m the one who followed Grace to Hawaii. Your call.”

Steve purses his lips and his attention veers sideways, away from Danny. He watches Steve warily, not sure what’s going to happen next, and while he might have just given Steve an out, he is practically begging with the whole universe that Steve does not actually _take_ it.

“Is trash day tomorrow?” is all Steve asks.

Danny’s eyes bug-out, go wide, and he must have missed the rest of the conversation. He is sure that Steve hit him on the head and he’s just gone unconscious and he has actually missed all the subjects that bridged the gap between Rachel and trash-day. “Come again?”

“Trash day,” is all Steve says. “Tomorrow?”

“We are having a serious discussion!” Danny shouts, aware that they’ve had complaints from the neighbors already – Danny’s been at fault twice with sex and arguing and Steve had accidentally blown the oven door off during an experiment. “You are supposed to make a decision now and then tell me because that is what people in relationships do!”

Unless you’re Danny and Rachel and have effectively pioneered a system of glares. He doesn’t know that it’ll work with him and Steve. It’s very hard to learn when not at a young age.

“Danny,” Steve says in that way he has, that ‘ _I got this_ ,’ tone that makes people trust him. “I decided. I decided a long time ago. Now, seriously, trash day. We’ve missed the last few weeks because you’ve forgotten…”

“Oh, I’ve forgotten, _I’ve_ forgotten, I’m the one who’s been doing stakeouts all night, not sleeping in our cushy bed and able to put the trash out leisurely in the…”

“Because it’s going to start smelling, Danny! And that’s how we’ll get pests…”

“And let me tell you something, I am the one who took it out last time. I remember because I got a lot of comments from our nice elderly neighbor about how I need to wear more clothes out if I intend to meet people along the way. Did you know that apartment etiquette, Steve? Because I didn’t, I did not know my house robe was not good enough for old Mrs. O’Leary next door.”

“She bakes me cookies,” Steve says smugly. “She says I’m a perfect example of a young gentleman and you can learn from me.”

“Of course she does,” Danny says with a sigh. He waits just a moment, just one, for the dust to settle and the teasing to fall by the wayside. He leans forward and nudges Steve’s knee with his knuckles. “You’re sure about this? You made your choice?”

“Yeah,” Steve says with a nod. “Yeah, I did. Danno, it took me four months to make sure it was the right one, but I don’t have a single doubt in my heart. I made my choice.”

Danny doesn’t need any more convincing than that.

*

This week, Danny gets Grace on a Tuesday night.

She’s finished her homework and has eaten every last green from off her plate – Steve cooked, which means it’s a salmon and broccoli kind of night. Danny’s just finished putting her to bed in the guest room and sits beside her, his palm stroking her hair, unable to leave without lingering.

She’s his baby girl and one day she’s gonna grow up and he’s barely going to recognize her anymore, but right now on this Tuesday night, she’s his and that’s all that matters. He closes the door gently behind himself and walks down the hall to see what Steve’s up to – if Steve’s up to anything dangerous or if he’s decided today is when he reveals his plan to take over the western half of the states.

Steve looks relatively harmless. In that he’s got Danny’s cell phone in hand and is just talking away.

Danny arches a brow and mouths, ‘Who is it?’ and of all the people it could’ve been, Danny didn’t expect for Steve to whisper, “Your mother,” back at him. And they’re off, Danny’s heart rate accelerating into panic and beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. He hasn’t exactly come around to mentioning to his mother that his live-in ex-partner has become something of a serious boyfriend to him.

He’s been waiting for an opportune moment. Maybe Christmas when everyone has drank too much and his sisters are shouting at each other about what they want to do for New Years. Yeah, Danny’s thinking that’d be the perfect time.

“Steven,” Danny commands sharply. “Steven, give up the phone. Steven John McGarrett, you will _not_ like the unholy retribution that will rain down on you if you don’t…” Somehow, he ends up standing on the couch and smacking Steve on the back of his head, snatching the phone in the melee.

“…but Danny’s been overprotective with his sisters since high school…”

“Ma, it’s okay, you can stop lying to Steve, I’m here,” Danny says, glaring right back at Steve – who has decided to turn his hurt puppy glare on Danny. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t work at all, and Danny is not going to feel so guilty later that he’ll probably give Steve an Apology Blowjob. He swats at Steve to make him go away so he can at least have a decent conversation with his mother.

“Daniel, sometimes I worry about you,” is the first thing his mother says to him.

As far as the Williams family goes, it’s not even that hefty a guilt-inducer. There’s just been so much worse.

“Steve tells me that you nearly got shot.”

“ _Nearly_! Nearly, Ma, focus on the nearly,” Danny practically howls in his defense before he remembers just how close Grace is and the last thing he needs is to wake her up. “Steve worries too much, next thing you know he’s going to start throwing salt over his shoulder just in case, just in case, and this is a Navy SEAL. If a Navy SEAL is throwing salt to ward away demons, I am not living with said SEAL anymore.”

“So then things are going well?”

Danny pauses and watches as Steve finally gives up on getting the cell phone back. He roams around the apartment tidying up and putting away the cupcakes they’d had for dessert. He’s wearing yoga pants that make his ass look, frankly, _fantastic_ and a long-sleeved Naval Intelligence sweatshirt.

“Yeah, I mean, they’re not half bad,” Danny admits. “Me and Garcia busted a drug ring,” he boasts proudly. “Even got my picture in the paper. I mailed a copy to you and Dad, and this time, no spelling mistakes,” he goes on, something warm pooling in his chest as he watches Steve glance back over his shoulder and smile proudly in Danny’s direction. “You okay there? Dad okay?”

“Your father needs something to occupy his time. He’s bored.”

“Ma, I think he’s just enjoying his retirement. Let the man be! So what he’s not working all the time anymore, it’s good for him, it’s good for the both of you. I mean, maybe, maybe you should start thinking about taking a trip out here,” Danny suggests, looking down the hallway like he’s already doing the math on where everyone will stay.

Now that he’s said it, he wants it. He wants it more than he’s wanted anything since he wanted Steve with him (and he got that). He wants his father to see the good work he’s doing and he wants both his parents to see how big Grace has gotten. He wants Steve to be able to shake his father’s hand and Danny wants to tell his mother that he thinks he’s _done_ and that second time’s the charm.

“We’d love to come out and see you, Danny,” his Mom says in that soft and hushed way that comes when Danny does something surprising. The last time he heard her sound like that, he’d bought her a dozen bouquets of roses for Mother’s Day. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Steve has finished unloading the dishwasher and comes back to the living room, standing in front of Danny – who has yet to move from his position, standing on the couch cushions. Steve just looks at him in that unyielding way that says he wants to know everything about the situation – the man is secretly a gossip whore who hides it behind Naval training, Danny is _convinced_.

“No, Ma,” Danny says, soft as anything as he reaches his free hand out and cups Steve’s cheek with it, brushing the line of his jaw once before letting that palm slide down Steve’s neck. He presses it atop his heart and just lets it rest there. “Me and the family,” he says, not taking his gaze away from Steve’s for a single moment.

 _Get this_ , he wills. _Understand this_.

“Me and the family, we want you here.”

He knows the conversation goes on past that. They talk about New Jersey and he gives them updates about Grace and they all say their ‘I love you’s, but Danny’s pretty sure it all passes in a haze. Steve’s only moved so far as to sit down beside Danny on the couch and when Danny finally says goodbye – for the third time, his Mom has a tendency to bring up cousins and their updates at the last minute – he pries the cell phone away.

“The family?” Steve says as he shifts their bodies, sliding until Danny is on his back and Steve is comfortably straddling him. “I didn’t know you and Rachel were doing that well.”

Danny just laughs.

He laughs. And then he laughs some more, and when Steve starts getting a hurt look on his face, Danny kisses him while the laughter bubbles past his lips. “God, Steve, you’re so lucky that you’re an _attractive_ idiot,” is all Danny has to say to him. “You’re my family, too,” he reminds him of what he once said in an airport so very far away.

Steve closes the distance between them and on a Tuesday night, Danny _knows_ that whatever he might have done in his life, he did something very right to get him to this.

And he knows that second time’s the charm.

THE END


	2. So Get Off Your Low

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after the events of 'Let's Dance Like We Used To' -- a timestamp of Danny & Steve's lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Sirona.

"It's big."

"Are you serious?" Steve demands, uncrossing his arms from their position over his chest, glaring at Danny from the porch. "I take you to see a nice house that has more rooms than the shoebox we're living in -- where we can hear the neighbors at any given moment -- and you tell me, what, 'it's big'. Yeah, Danny," he snaps. "It's big. Imagine that."

"What the fuck, Steven, attitude much?" Danny replies, eyes wide in horror.

Danny's been off his game lately. They've been working a serial and while Garcia has insisted he'd take the brunt of the case -- seeing as the victims are Navy SEALS and Danny's feeling it hit just a little too close to home -- there's no avoiding it when he goes into work. When you combine it with the fact that his mother is hinting at Danny losing virtue by the hour the longer he stays unmarried and Steve's continued near-proposals, he's going to have a heart attack anytime now.

Add in this: this house-hunting menace of a hobby.

To say that Danny's about to blow would be the understatement of the year.

Steve glares at him from over the rim of his glasses. It’s a new thing, Steve wearing glasses so often, but the optometrist says his vision’s gone downhill at an alarming rate. If he were still active, it would’ve been the last blow that carried him swiftly into the arms of the reserves. It’s a lucky thing that Steve’s found this, then.

Although, at the moment, the vein in his forehead looks ready to burst and Danny thinks, with smug victory, that he’s definitely allayed any marriage proposals for the next while.

“Grace is going to be thirteen soon,” Steve explains patiently, sounding like he’s being water-tortured to be so calm about all this, “and don’t you think a teenager would prefer to have a room that isn’t sharing a wall with her Dad and me?”

“So we move into a bigger apartment, I don’t understand why you’re so keen on a freakin’ mansion!” Danny says, gesturing wildly to the space of the lobby before them.

“Danny, it’s a normal sized house! I’m sorry that you’re so used to living in Thumbelina-sized homes that you—”

“Whoa, hey, I’ll have you know that Thumbelina is a goddamn barley-legend of gold and—”

“—don’t even know what decent living space means even if it bit you _in the ass_!”

“—you, you are no one to talk, you destroyer of joy. You’re probably in on this with my parents!”

They finish yelling at around the same time, heavy breaths caught in their chests. Danny realizes that they’re going nowhere fast at this rate and he’s due for a long afternoon of steady arguments about why they need the space – Grace, visits from Hawaii, visits from New Jersey, entertaining, inevitable parties – but right now, there are more urgent matters.

For instance: convincing the realtor that she hasn’t just picked up two insane asylum refugees.

“Really,” Danny says, trying to be placating to the poor woman standing in the lobby with a clipboard clutched to her chest. “We’re not _always_ like this. Much.”

“...and the last owner,” she continues shakily, like she hasn’t just been caught up in the riptide of their relationship, “did some very interesting things with the crown-moulding.”

Steve catches Danny’s eye as they walk through the house. There’s a mischievous glint that Danny doesn’t like there and he realizes -- _fuck his life_ \-- that this is the house they’re going to grow old in.

“And the closet space?” Danny pipes up.

If he’s going to be stuck in this, he’s damn well going to have somewhere for his suits.


	3. Let's Kiss Like We Used To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve never thought that he could feel so out of control, but being halfway around the world when Danny gets hurt is a surefire way to get him there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks ENDLESSLY to Space for the beta. This work is a direct sequel to [Let's Dance Like We Used To](http://archiveofourown.org/works/165578/chapters/241013), a fic in which Rachel moves the family to California, Danny goes with and Steve gets left to process life without Danny.

“Hey. What is that, babe?” Danny asks, glancing up from the case files spread out over the table. Steve’s been pacing their small kitchen with an opened letter from a crisp manila envelope for the last few minutes. Usually, Steve would make an entirely-too-serious joke about how he’d have more kitchen space to wander if they moved into a bigger house.

Instead, he stays silent, which he knows is just going to rile Danny. He can probably count their way down to a ‘who are you and what have you done with Steve?’ crack.

“It’s a request,” Steve says, flipping through the pages of the letter with his thumb. 

“What? What is it, is it jury duty?” Danny asks, biting a pencil between his teeth and mumbling past it. “Don’t worry, just show up and tell them how much you like to shoot things. That’ll get you out of the selection process in a _second_. If that doesn’t work, just mention some of the things you like to do to perps.”

“I don’t do those things anymore, Danno.”

“Really?” Danny scoffs. “Because, Steven, hanging our community lifeguard by the strings of his life-preserver because he was flirting with a hot blonde and not watching the kids swim isn’t exactly the best argument in your favor.”

“Grace could’ve gotten hurt,” Steve says, but he’s still pacing. 

Danny rolls his eyes. “No, you idiot, the only person who got hurt was the lifeguard because you’re an overprotective step-uncle-Dad -- whatever we decided she calls you.” Steve doesn’t want to delve too deep into that whole issue because it brings up another can of worms. 

He and Danny have been looking at houses for the last few months and they’ve even gone so far as to put an offer on one that they’re waiting to hear back about, but that’s not the only thing out there. Steve keeps proposing (and he knows that ‘domestic partnership’ doesn’t have the same ring as ‘marriage’, but Steve’s never bogged himself down with those details before), but Danny refuses to give him an answer. Sometimes it’s off-hand and Danny doesn’t think it’s serious and then there are other moments when they’re watching football and drinking beer and everything is perfect between them; then, Steve asks.

Danny’s managed to avoid answering one way or the other and it’s starting to drive Steve crazy. He’s not sure what else he can do to get the answer he wants, but he refuses to stop trying just because Danny’s being difficult. That’s part of Danny, it’s who he _is_. It’s practically written in his genetic code.

“What’s the request for?” Danny asks absently, but Steve practically sees the _moment_ that his good mood vanishes. It’s gone as soon as he sees the return address on the envelope.

It’s from the base, stamped to expedite its delivery. Danny keeps his eyes steadfastly on the latest VISA statement mixed in with the work files, but he’s _Danny_. He’s never been able to hide his emotions, so it’s easy for Steve to read the panic in the way he presses his lips together. They’d always known that this was a possibility. Steve had taken advantage of the fact that DADT had been repealed and signed up to teach America’s youth how to defend their fair nation, but there’s always been the risk that Steve was going to have to rejoin the ranks. 

“Steve?” he prods, when Steve doesn’t say anything. “How long?”

Steve is trying to let the denial stretch out for a little while longer. He wants to pretend this isn’t happening for just a few more minutes. “I have to leave in a week.”

“Okay.” 

That’s his ‘we have to plan’ voice. He’s probably thinking about all the things they have to do in the next week to get ready for this. Out of nowhere, Steve’s caught off-guard by the memory of himself on one-knee, asking Danny again and again and _again_ with the same question, but he shakes it off. They only have a week, he’s not about to rush something like that when he wants it to be _perfect_. There’ll be time to ask later. 

“What do we need to do?” Danny asks.

Steve looks at him with such _relief_ and love, grateful to have something to focus on that isn’t their impending separation or the danger that’s inherent with any mission of this caliber. The details of the upcoming mission fade away as they begin to make lists of people to call, chores to be done, and how they’re going to tell Grace.

Four hours into the process and after they’ve moved from the kitchen table to the master bed, Steve looks up from the mass of papers he has in front of him – medical documentation, insurance, and all the fine print in between. He’s _exhausted_. He wants to shout until someone listens, but he can’t do that. They both have to be strong otherwise this could fall apart right before their eyes.

“Hey,” Danny says, crawling on all fours and wading through the paperwork. He settles back on his haunches and lightly cups Steve’s face in his fingers. “How about we leave this and worry about it later?”

“Yeah?” Steve murmurs, practically melting forward into Danny’s touch.

“Yeah,” Danny agrees. Steve takes selfish delight in pushing the papers off of the bed and pinning Danny down, grateful for the first time in years that they didn’t have Grace for the afternoon. That’s the last thought he spares for anything but Danny before he starts doing things with his lips and his tongue that Grace isn’t allowed to learn about until she’s _forty-five_ , at the _very_ least.

* * *

It’s been two weeks of work in the deep jungle. The only contact that Steve’s had with the outside world is the regular supply-run into their base of operations and even that can’t be guaranteed.

Their target has been moving through Belize and while Steve’s team is good, they’re _green_. Every day is another learning experience, which is the most stressful situation Steve’s ever been in – and he’d know stressful situations, given that he’s been living with Danny for three years. 

He’s tried to keep strict control on his thoughts. The last thing he needs is to be knee-deep in the middle of a critical situation and concerned about what’s happening thousands of miles away. As far as Steve’s concerned, he has to compartmentalize his life. He’ll go back to being Steve McGarrett: Thoughtful and Loving Boyfriend when he gets back.

There’s work to do here.

He’s volunteered for another patrol with some of the younger kids. They’ll be good, but their confidence levels lack something that Steve’s not sure he knows how to provide. Staying out here on patrol is better than sitting around camp, remembering what he’s missing. Volunteering is no hardship, as a result. In fact, it’s practically a blessing. 

“Sir?” McCoy whispers, running in a crouch to get past the open space between thick trees. “Nothing from that last perimeter check. Should we head back to base?”

Steve leans lower into the cover he’s established for himself under a tree that’s probably been there five times as long as he’s been alive. He checks in with his guys on the radio and when there’s nothing moving out there, he debates making McCoy and the rest of his team stay. They’re tracking a dangerous son of a bitch, but he’s forcing their hands and making them wait; making them be patient.

Steve is really, _really_ bad with patient.

“Yeah, let’s head back,” Steve agrees quietly, issuing the order over the walkie-talkies. It’s no more than a twenty-minute walk back to camp if he goes at a brisk pace, but Steve’s not eager to get back. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d be keeping his men out there with him, he’d set up camp all day and all night until he had enough evidence to haul the bastard in and get on the next flight home.

It’s only when he gets back to base that he realizes how little he belongs here. Once, a long time ago, this had been all he knew how to do. He’d been the same as any of the young men on his team. He had been hungry for victory and eager to do a good job. If he couldn’t be a police officer like his father, he wanted to serve some kind of higher purpose. Even with Five-0, he had always put justice first and foremost in his life.

It was the move to San Diego that changed everything.

He’d _tried_ after Danny left. He’d tried so goddamn hard. He’d wanted to go back to the way that things were before Danny Williams, but it’d turned out that Steve didn’t really understand how to do that. Not anymore. So he’d moved to California and gained a boyfriend and a family in one fell swoop. 

Now, they’re his first priority. 

He tries to stop thinking about it as the camp comes into view. The only thing that prolonged thinking about home does is put him in a maudlin mood and then he makes his team miserable the whole night through. Steve hauls his pack off his back when he gets to his tent, frowning when he sees evidence that someone’s been inside. 

The letter is waiting for him on top of the makeshift table next to the spartan cot. “Hey!” Steve calls to one of the guys, but they’re all busy unpacking supplies and opening their own mail. Steve doesn’t recognize the hand-writing on the envelope. It’s not Grace’s and it’s not Danny’s and it’s deceptively thin. “Does anyone know who brought this?” he asks Shanks when he passes with rations, tossing Steve a meal pack. 

“I don’t know, bro. Mail call. All I know is that it was priority rushed to you. Must be something important,” he replies, saluting as he jogs off. “Hey, dinner’s on, boys!”

Steve stares at the envelope, frowning as he tears into it. He’s not expecting anything, not since he spoke to Danny a couple days ago. He knows that Steve will keep in touch, but that daily phone calls aren’t possible. ‘Hey, but,’ Danny had murmured sleepily, ‘you know I love you, yeah? So don’t get yourself killed out there’. 

Steve’s dread only increases when he gets the letter out. It’s a single piece of paper, sloppy handwriting over the white of the page. It takes him twenty seconds to read, but it feels like he’s lived a whole lifetime by the time he gets to the end. He folds the letter carefully in eighths, tucks it into his pocket, and grabs the nearest radio.

“This is Commander McGarrett to HQ, over.”

“This is HQ, Commander. What’s your situation, over?”

“I need a replacement for my unit. There’s been an incident at home and I need an immediate evac, over.”

They run him around several loops until Steve reaches his breaking point. He’s talking to the third higher-up and it’s been two hours. It’s two hours that he could have been using to get back home, but instead he’s trying to negotiate his way through replacements and damage mitigation and he doesn’t give a shit. 

“It’s an emergency and I’m going home,” Steve finally snaps, when they transfer another party onto the line. “Discharge me dishonorably if you want,” is the last thing he says before he hangs up the line and starts walking into town to hitch the next truck to the nearest airstrip that he can find. 

It’s not Steve’s fault that his neatly compartmentalized worlds have crashed forcibly into each other.

And he’s always going to choose home. 

Always.

* * *

“Mary!” 

She’s the first person he sees when he gets off the flight. In order to get back to San Diego as quickly as possible, he’d flown straight through to Chicago and then across the country. He’s not there as quickly as he’d like, but he’s here now. Mary is going to take him to the hospital and then he’s going to get to Danny’s room and everything will be fine. 

It’s going to be _fine_. 

Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, he’ll start believing it. “Steve,” Mary calls him over, dropping her purse to the ground so that when she hugs him, there’s nothing in her way. “Steve,” she echoes, speaking against his shoulder. “They won’t let me in to see him. He’s still in the ICU and they’re only admitting immediate family right now.”

“But, he’s okay?” Steve asks, feeling strangled by the thought that Danny might not be. For the last five years of his life, Danny’s been the one constant who always makes it through. No matter how chaotic the universe is, no matter what tries to weigh them down, Danny always comes out on the other side. 

Steve doesn’t know what to make of the _possibility_ that Danny’s not okay – and Steve wasn’t here to stop it because he’s in another country. 

When he finally pulls himself away from Mary, he brushes his knuckle over his cheek to wipe away tears that aren’t even there, the dryness a disconcerting feeling against his fingers. His attention lands on the exit doors where he sees a familiar face. “Garcia,” he says, not liking the way his voice sounds. It’s roughshod and emotional and he hates to force control on himself, but these are actions unbefitting a Lieutenant Commander of the United States Navy. “How’s Danny?”

“He’s stable,” Garcia replies. “He’ll be glad to see you, I bet. I brought the squad car, so you’ve got a ride to the hospital in style.”

They drive through red lights thanks to the siren on the squad car and Steve has never been so grateful for Garcia’s malleable respect for the laws of the road as he is at this very moment. They spend the ride in silence because Steve isn’t sure whether he can manage to start a conversation that won’t end in, ‘ _what if I’d been there, what if I’d never stopped being his partner, what if, what if, what if_ ’ and Garcia doesn’t try and engage him in small talk. 

When they reach the hospital, Steve unbuckles in a superhuman effort to be out of the car and into Danny’s room, but he’s stopped by the fact that Garcia isn’t doing the same. He’s just sitting there with an ashen look on his face. 

_Something is going on_ , Steve realizes. There’s something they’re not telling him.

“What?” Steve asks, dread creeping in through every defense.

“I didn’t know the details when I wrote you that letter,” Garcia says, clasping the steering wheel tightly. Steve watches the way his knuckles flex and turn white before he loosens his grip and starts the process over again. It’s easier to watch than to look at the frightened look on Garcia’s face. “I just knew Danny would kick my ass if I didn’t get you home.”

Steve hasn’t felt like this in years. He hasn’t felt like he’s lost the ability to breathe since…since the sarin attack, since the letter on his desk requesting a transfer out of Five-0. Danny’s not dead, he’s not _dead_ because they’re at the hospital and someone would have told him if Danny were dead, but…

“We thought, maybe,” Garcia says, each word more strangled than the last, “that when you got back, you could talk him into waking up. He never let you get a word in edgewise. We were kind of hoping, all of us, that he wouldn’t start now.” Garcia’s eyes are red and Steve sinks back down into the seat.

“Danny’s…”

He can’t say it. 

He _can’t say it_. 

“Yeah, bro,” Garcia says quietly. “It’s been almost a week, now. The doctors say he’s lucky to be alive, but he…” With a heavy sigh, Garcia reaches over and clasps Steve by the shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “He’s not waking up.”

That’s all it takes. Steve’s out of the car, rushing to get past the front desk and security. He nearly makes it to Danny’s room before two orderlies pull him away, shouting about protocol and disinfection. The only reason that Steve doesn’t do something drastic is because he can hear Danny’s voice in his head telling him not to behave like a Neanderthal in front of all the nice people.

“Sir!” the nurse is shouting at him. “Sir, you can’t _be here_. This is the intensive care unit, you can’t just go charging in here!”

“I need to be in there. Danny’s in there, I need to see him,” Steve says, a panic gripping his limbs as he thinks about how close he is. Another twenty steps would get him into Danny’s room and he’ll see with his own two eyes that Danny’s okay. “Daniel Williams. His name is Daniel Williams, I’m his partner, you need to let me in.”

“Sir, you’re not family, I…I can’t,” the nurse says, a desperately sympathetic look on her face. “I’m sorry.”

The instinct to take out the orderlies and rush to Danny’s room flares up again. 

“Are you kidding me?”

She stares back at him, papers being lifted and slid across the table. “Fill these out and we’ll make sure to call you as soon as there’s a change. When he wakes up, you two can discuss filing domestic partnership paperwork to allow for more rights, if you want to be able to see him when he’s in the hospital.”

“This is the _only_ time Danny’s going to be in the hospital like this,” Steve says. The minute that Danny wakes up, Steve’s going to put a plan in action. He’s not taking any missions, he’s going to make sure that Garcia covers his goddamn six, and he’s going to keep Danny from… from…

He’s still not awake. 

What if there isn’t even a next time? What if Steve missed out on his chance because he was a continent away trying to do his job and failed to fulfill the most important role he’d taken on in the last five years? He’s supposed to take care of Grace and Danny.

He hasn’t exactly done a good job of that.

“Sir?” the nurse prompts, sliding the clipboard a little closer to him.

“I’ll take a look at it,” he says neutrally, as close as he’ll come to actually saying ‘ _I’ll behave_ ’.

He grabs the clipboard and makes a point of sitting down noisily, glaring at every single staff member who crosses his path. His thigh holster is empty. This isn’t Hawaii and he doesn’t have means and immunity; carrying a gun into a hospital is a bad idea. The last thing he needs is more bad ideas. He feels like one more is going to get him kicked out of the hospital and he doesn’t want to leave before he talks to Danny’s doctor. 

Steve should call Grace.

Then, he supposes that Grace has already been called. He’s the one who’s late. Steve’s the one who’s late and hasn’t been here to take care of Danny. Steve’s civilian cell phone is locked away in a drawer and as soon as he finishes filling out the form to apply to _see his goddamn boyfriend_ , he practically throws it over the desk to the nurse.

His first stop is the apartment. He wants to be at the hospital with Danny, but he needs to change his clothes, get his cell phone, call… well, who’s left to call? He pages through days of messages from a dozen callers – Garcia, Grace, Mary, Rachel, Chin, Grace again, Kono, Stan. They go on and on. He’s missed a week’s worth of messages and he already knows what each and every one of them will say.

_Danny’s hurt. Danny’s in trouble. You need to come home._

It’s pointless to listen to them because Steve already knows what he should have done. He never should have left.

Steve changes into Danny’s favorite pair of cargo pants – which is to say that when Steve wears them, Danny only bitches for five minutes instead of fifteen – and a blue polo shirt, grabs his phone and his piece and heads to the hospital. 

They still don’t let him in.

They tell Steve that they’ll call if there’s a change.

Still, he doesn’t leave and when Garcia joins him in the waiting room, Steve feels assured that even though he was gone, Danny was never really alone.

“Hey,” Garcia murmurs, clapping Steve by the knee. “So, Danny tells me that you dangled a guy off a roof once, all because of a tattoo. That true?”

Even asleep (comatose, he’s _comatose_ , and he might not wake up), Danny’s managed to find a way to ease Steve into distraction with a few well-placed stories that keep him from barging into Danny’s hospital room, throwing him over his shoulder, and kidnapping him back to Honolulu where they _let_ him do things like that.

“He’s exaggerating,” Steve says evenly.

“So, what, it’s not true?”

“…It’s not entirely untrue.”

They spend three hours talking about Steve and Danny’s partnership at Five-0. It’s the easiest that Steve’s felt since Garcia showed up to pick him up at the airport with bad news, though it doesn’t get him anywhere near feeling better. He’s going to wait for Danny to wake up and then, he’ll start working on accomplishing all the things he’s put off for too long.

* * *

On the second day of his return, Steve stays at the apartment and does the cleaning that Danny has refused to do in all the time they’ve lived there -- _everything has a place, Steve. It’s organized! It’s just my kind of organized!_ The drapes are washed, the carpets steam-cleaned, and he takes every plate out of the cupboards, washes them, and then puts them back. Chin and Kono fly in that night and keep him company while they drink light beers and watch old home videos of Grace and Danny. 

Steve tries not to think about the way Danny smiles so broadly and so easily and how he might never…

On the third day, he tries to go to the hospital again. They won’t let him in. He sends flowers in with Grace and waits outside for news. When they still won’t let him in, he drives the Mustang ten miles over the speed limit to get to the courthouse and begins filling out paperwork that he should have started months ago regardless of what answer Danny gave him.

On the fourth day, Steve lurks at the counter of a jewelry shop until the attendants ask if he needs any help. He’s overwhelmed with the guilt of being here without Danny and leaves with a curt ‘no, thanks’. He drives to the base and attends several meetings with his commanding officers, acting as a liaison to the lieutenant that took over the mission when he left and kissing as much ass as possible to get out of the trouble he’d put himself in when he’d abandoned his post. Chin and Kono are still at the apartment when he gets back and he trades in the light beer for scotch that night.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” Steve admits, hating the way his voice sounds as ragged as it does. Danny would mock him for it, given that rough and tough Navy SEALs should never sound this broken down, but Steve feels like he’s run a marathon.

He’s exhausted. He’s mentally and physically exhausted and while he knows he has to stay strong for Grace’s sake, he’s not sure how much more of this he can take. 

“Steve,” Kono says gently. “It’s Danny. He’s the stubbornest man I’ve ever known. Do you really think this’ll slow him down?”

“Four days, Kono,” Steve says. He’s angry, but he doesn’t know where to direct it and so he lashes out at whatever he can. “The doctors said they’d start to worry after two.” Danny’s vitals are weak, but consistent. 

He just won’t wake up.

Talk about stubborn.

“Danny got shot. I wasn’t here to stop it,” Steve says, fighting to keep that last sliver of control that he’s barely holding onto. “He’s in this mess because I wasn’t here.”

Chin and Kono exchange a look, like they’re debating whether or not to break the news that Steve already knows (deep down). It wouldn’t have mattered if Steve were overseas or not. He’s not Danny’s partner anymore, not when it comes to the job. Garcia watches his back and even he couldn’t stop this.

Steve’s got Danny’s back at home, but even then, he’s not sure how good a job he’s doing. After all, they’re in a situation where Danny’s comatose in the ICU ward and Steve can’t go and see him because they’re not official. There’s no paper that says that Steve has full possession of those rights.

Maybe it’s Danny he should be angriest with and maybe it’s himself.

In the end, Steve’s not in control of his emotions to truly direct that anger where it ought to go and he feels like tearing his life down around him. “I should’ve listened to him, I should’ve done something to make him safer, I should have…” Should have, _should have_. He can keep doing this all day.

It’s Kono who leans forward, squeezing Steve’s shoulder lightly. “Boss,” she says. “You did everything you were supposed to. You didn’t pull the trigger. You didn’t orchestrate Danny’s constant denials of your less-than-romantic proposals, which he’s felt compelled to call Hawaii and bitch and bitch and _bitch_ about…”

“Hey, I--!”

“So, what can you do? Other than be patient, not much at all.”

Steve sags forward, head in his hands. “I’m terrible with patient.”

“At least you’ll always know that Danny’s worse,” Chin says, holding out another bottle of beer. “Drink, Steve. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the hospital and see if the paperwork’s gone through yet.”

Tomorrow. Steve can wait until tomorrow.

* * *

Except that when midnight rolls around, Steve still can’t sleep.

One AM passes, then two, three, four. Steve lies awake in their bed and he’s alone for the first time in years, so long that he’s forgotten how it rips through him and leaves him feeling empty. The sheets are cold and the bed is too still. Danny, on any given day, talks quickly, moves endlessly, and it carries over into bed where he cycles like it’s the Tour de France and if he manages to cripple Steve, he’ll somehow win.

It’s quiet and the bed is still and it’s driving Steve out of his mind.

It’s day five, now, and his phone hasn’t rung. He’s impressed the importance of him being the first call if Danny wakes up – with what Danny would call ‘McGarrett-esque torture methods, the likes of which even the US government think go too far’ – but the phone stays as silent as the rest of the apartment.

Steve’s on the edge of a panic that he hasn’t experienced in so very long. The last time he felt like this, his father was on the other end of the line and Hesse held all the power in his hands. This time, the blame is on some nameless crook that the San Diego PD is still looking for. At the end of the third day, he’d stormed the precinct and demanded to speak to the Captain and offer his help.

He’d been sent home, told that he was too close to the case.

There’s no immunity, no means. The Governor here won’t let Steve do whatever he likes in the name of justice. Instead, Steve’s like any other cop’s wife, left to worry without any control to fix it. Five in the morning, Steve loses the little left of his sanity and does something he never thought he’d do. Phone in hand, he dials numbers from memory and waits.

He’s gotten good at waiting. Steve sort of _hates_ that fact.

“What?” murmurs the drowsy voice at the other end of the line when they pick up. Steve ought to feel worse, calling her so early in the morning, but if he waits any longer, he’ll do something that he’ll regret – that Danny would be furious with him for.

“Rachel,” Steve says.

“Commander?”

“Yes,” he replies. Now that he’s called her, he’s not sure why he did. Except he does know, of course he knows. He wants her to tell him how to do this. Steve needs to know how to cope with this monster inside his chest that makes it feel like it’s going to burst loose and wreak havoc in his heart and his mind and all the other parts of him that Danny’s got a hold of. 

“Steve,” Rachel says, softening her tone. “You are aware that it’s five in the morning.”

“Yeah. I know, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t sleep.”

There’s a long pause from the other end of the line. “You know,” Rachel murmurs, sounding fond and bitter all at once, “neither could I. Funny how they don’t mention that divorce papers do nothing to erase the worry that comes of once having been a policeman’s wife.”

Steve spares the briefest of moments to think that at least she would’ve been able to see Danny.

“What do I do?” he asks, wondering if he’s woken up Stan (not caring at all if he has). “Rachel, he’s not waking up. What the hell do I do?”

There’s the sound of bed sheets rustling on the other end, faintly. Steve wonders if she’s settling in for a long talk or whether she’s trying to give Stan the privacy to sleep. Either way, it causes another mild flood of guilt to rush through Steve at interrupting them at such an early hour of the morning. The rustling shifts to the sound of water and all the while, Rachel doesn’t say anything. Steve’s nerves, already half-shot, begin to tense again and he’s half ready to beg for Rachel to say something, say _anything_ to help him out. “Firstly,” Rachel finally says, as the soft whistle of boiling water gives soundtrack to her words, “you don’t take it out on Garcia.” It’s crossed Steve’s mind, but he hasn’t let it out – yet. “He’s likely feeling as guilty as you are. It’s only going to make the both of you feel worse in the long run. Secondly, you need to remember that nothing that you do will change any of this. Steve, I know this is hard, but you are _completely powerless_ right now and the sooner you realize that it will make you _crazy_ , the better chance you have of getting through it.”

Steve takes in a deep breath, a question on his lips that he doesn’t want to ask, but is going to come out, regardless: “Rachel, what if he never wakes up?”

The silence on the line is achingly terrifying.

“Honestly, Steve? I don’t know.”

He mumbles a brief ‘thanks’ before hanging up. The cell phone is tossed across the bed, ensnared in a mess of blankets. Steve reclines back against Danny’s pillow – which hasn’t smelled like Danny for days now -- and stares ceiling-wards as he searches for some kind of answer to the question that’s so crushing that he doesn’t even want to think that _thought_. 

Steve stopped believing in any actual God the day that his father died. It’d been hard to believe that anyone could sit up there and let that kind of injustice occur – his faith had only wavered harder when Hesse was found still alive and allowed to wreck the kind of havoc he did. And yet, Steve lies in bed and stares at the ceiling and thinks to himself, _I’d start to believe again if Danny woke up, if you just gave me this._

Rachel’s advice rings in his head. He hates to abandon control, hates to give up anything, but Danny’s in a hospital bed and machines are breathing for him – even if Steve would do it for him, twenty-four hours a day, if they would only _let_ him.

“Let him get through this,” Steve says, the softest begging that he’s ever done, but it means the most to him. He keeps his voice down so Chin and Kono don’t hear this desperate plea bargain, but he means it, he’d give anything just to see Danny pull through this. “Please,” he exhales, turning the panic and pushing it outwards until he’s scared and he’s panicked and he’s distressed and he’s half-crazy, but he gives in to the fact that he isn’t in control of any of this.

“Please,” he begs one more time and gives in – though never gives up.

* * *

It’s day five. It’s day five and Danny wakes up.

To say that he’s _pissed_ when he does is an understatement.

* * *

“What the hell do you _mean_ they won’t let Steve in to see me?” Danny’s always been loud. Steve can hear him bellowing at the attending doctor from where he’s sitting in the waiting room. “He’s Steve!”

Steve’s sitting outside the room. He wants nothing more than to get in there, but there are tests to run, medicine to take, and Steve’s not sure he can stand in Danny’s hospital room without breaking down from the marathon of emotions he’s had cycling through him for the past five days.

“Yes, Danny, and while we’re all aware of who _Steve_ is, he’s nothing to you.” Steve winces on Rachel’s behalf. He can actually envision how apoplectic with rage Danny is right now. “ _Officially_ , Danny. You two have never taken the next step. There’s no paperwork to give him that kind of permission and you weren’t exactly _conscious_ to yell at them otherwise.”

Their voices quiet after that and Steve loses track of the conversation.

Rachel’s words bring Steve back to the thought that they haven’t made the next move, not through lack of will. Steve wants everything. He wants to move into a bigger house and he wants Danny to say _yes_ to a question they already know is inevitably going to be agreed to. He wants to have what they already do, with a piece of paper to make it official, and Steve doesn’t see what the big deal is in taking this next step.

This, in retrospect, might be why Danny keeps saying no. 

Steve is such an idiot.

“Garcia,” Steve says, barely aware of his surroundings as he gets to his feet. “Garcia, listen, if Danny asks for me, tell him to call my cell. I figured something out.” He’s been treating this like it’s going to happen, no matter what. He’s been assuming that Danny’s going to say yes. He’s been taking that fact for granted.

He nearly lost Danny. The doctors say that if the bullet had gone two inches to the right, Danny wouldn’t have lasted long. As it is, Steve owes a mountain of debt to Garcia for administering CPR when Danny stopped breathing on the scene. 

His next stop is finding Grace. Rachel had broken the initial good news to her daughter and she’s been at the hospital ever since. She’s sprawled in one of the visitor’s chairs in a position that looks like it’d wreak havoc on her spine, but apparently, that’s what kids do these days.

Steve laments the fact that he’s old enough that he’s legitimately just had a thought that ended with ‘kids these days’.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, even though she hates being called ‘kiddo’ these days. She’s too old, is what she says. She’s too _mature_ for that – she’s been too mature for that for years, but Danny still calls her his Monkey and Steve calls her kiddo and she lets them. “You busy?”

“I have homework,” she says, lifting up her math book as if that’ll make the point.

“Okay. Okay,” Steve says, frowning as he prioritizes his afternoon, “You can finish your homework after we run a quick errand. I need your help.”

While she’s suspicious, she apparently doesn’t need an excuse to abandon math. The book is shut, her bag is zipped, and she’s instantly on her feet at Steve’s side as they leave the hospital. An hour later, Grace is staring at him in the Mustang with shiny eyes and an incredulous look on her face. She’s made Steve repeat himself four times and he has the feeling that a fifth is on the way. 

“Really?”

“Grace, _really_ ,” Steve sighs. “Now, can we please go? I do want to get back to the hospital to see Danny at some point today before he thinks I’m still in some foreign country.”

She gives him a sidelong look from the passenger seat. Steve’s been with Danny Williams long enough to see a jibe coming and for a second, it’s like they’re back in Hawaii and this is the Governor sending them out for a task. Steve’s driving because he likes to drive and there’s a Williams in the passenger seat.

With Danny awake, it’s a possibility once more and Steve releases tension in his shoulders that’s been building up ever since he got that letter.

“Say it,” Steve finally coaxes.

“I’m just saying that Danno thinks you’re always in a foreign country, at least up in your head. I’m pretty sure he’s insistent they don’t have laws there. Especially not road ones.”

Steve’s grin is easy and _huge_.

“You’re your father’s daughter.”

And that’s all Grace needs to hear to light up, too.

* * *

“Your bags,” Steve says for the tenth time. They’re standing beside the Mustang outside the hospital and Danny’s _finally_ been discharged. As far as Steve’s concerned, it’s two weeks too late, but the doctors kept finding new concerns and the last thing Steve was going to do was let Danny get into more trouble. “Danny, do we have all the bags?”

Danny doesn’t answer.

Steve turns with his mouth open to snap the question one more time when he sees the look that Danny is giving him from the mandated wheelchair that the nurse had brought him out in. Danny looks like he’s about to laugh himself sick. “I’m happy that you think this is so hilarious,” Steve mutters evenly, shoving his duffel bag into the trunk with a heavy amount of force. 

“Sorry,” Danny says wearily. “You just reminded me of one of those little wind-up dolls. Honestly, Steve, if you said ‘your bags’ one more time, I was going to start checking for batteries.”

Steve isn’t done glaring, but he’s grateful that Danny’s _awake_ to talk back to him. There were days (dark moments in the middle of the night) when Steve had almost resigned himself to the idea that Danny wasn’t going to pull out of it. 

He hadn’t managed to get Danny to say yes.

He’d left his home and his family.

Steve had almost lost _everything_.

There’s nothing funny about this. He hates that Danny is laughing about this, even if they’re trying to get back to normal. “It’s not funny, Daniel,” he says as he braces his arms under Danny’s body to haul him out of the wheelchair, settling him on his feet and indulging in this private moment where their bodies are so close that Steve basks in the warmth that comes from Danny in front of him, from Steve’s hand on Danny’s back, from the relief that comes from feeling every breath.

“It’s a little bit funny,” Danny admits, but there’s that same weariness in his voice, like he hasn’t been able to shake the sleep from him, even though he’s been awake for days now. Steve tries to turn off the voice in his head that says how _gorgeous_ and _perfect_ Danny sounds because he’s awake and alive and there’s a little bit of a sultry hint in his tone. 

Steve feels like he’s going to snap and throw some of the bags in Danny’s direction, but he manages to push them into the trunk instead of at his partner’s head. He takes in a deep breath and reminds himself how grateful he is that Danny’s alive and that he has a ring tucked away in a velvet pouch in his pocket so this never happens again – as if he can inform fate of that. “Danny…”

“Steve,” he counters.

Steve balls up his fists and finds that he’s so _angry_. Danny always makes him so angry and this time is worse because doesn’t Danny know how much they almost lost? Steve waits until Danny’s in the car, relishing the way he gets to slam the passenger door and the driver’s, for good measure. The drive back to the apartment is quiet for the first few minutes, all that anger seeping away and infecting Steve like a sickness until he can’t take it anymore. 

“Danny, you piss me off sometimes, you know that? How can you be so fucking cavalier about this? How can you make jokes?” he snaps. “You nearly _died_.” Every time he thinks about Danny sleeping in a room that Steve couldn’t even get into, he finds himself back in that perilous and panicked place.

“Steve, it’s not like I asked to get shot,” Danny says tersely. 

Steve parks the car in front of the apartment. For a moment, he needs the time to think of what he wants to say. It’s too tempting to snap and let loose, rant at Danny the way he’d appreciate. Instead, Steve takes the time to get out of the Mustang, help Danny out, and keep him stable with one hand wrapped securely and possessively around Danny’s wrist.

He knows, then, what he needs to say. He knows what he needs Danny to hear.

“It’s not…I don’t…it’s not _that_ , Danny, it’s not that you asked to get shot. It’s the fact that you got shot and I got pushed out of your room because we didn’t have paperwork! It’s that no matter how much I love you and I do, Danny, I fucking love you,” Steve lobs the words like they’re meant to be insults when really he’s just tired of assuming Danny knows, “I love you and it still didn’t matter and I’m tired of being ready when you’re not. Danny, it was so close.” Steve exhales, sagging back against the Mustang.

“Hey,” Danny murmurs, sliding into Steve’s personal bubble and pushing both hands into Steve’s front pockets, splaying his fingers until the warmth is a welcome presence against Steve’s upper thighs. 

Steve swallows, but he can’t manage to displace the lump in his throat.

He knows the second Danny feels it, the second that Danny’s fingers brush upwards and catch a firm object rather than the inner lining of his jeans pocket. 

“Take it out,” Steve instructs, because he knows that Danny’s not about to let it go. 

Danny raises a brow, but fishes out the small pouch from Steve’s pocket. This isn’t how he wanted it to be, but the truth is that Steve hadn’t put much thought into this besides knowing that he wants it to happen. Pure and simple, he doesn’t need for this to be fancy and he’s kind of hoping that Danny’s on the same page.

“This again, huh,” Danny murmurs, and though Steve could read into those words that Danny’s tired of his asking, there’s a fondness that’s never been there before and it’s the first time that Steve can tell that the past few weeks have taken their toll on Danny. Steve can finally see that Danny’s scared too. 

Steve feels brittle. 

He can see how it’ll happen. 

Danny will say no again because he’s that kind of stubborn asshole and Steve’s never going to feel comfortable because there will always be some kind of lack of control if he can’t be in Danny’s life the way he wants to be – all in. He’s going to say no and no matter how much he insists that they’re a family, it’s not going to be official.

So when Danny looks up at him and slides the ring onto his left hand ring finger, Steve feels like he’s officially tumbled into a twilight zone where his partner is somehow rational, calm, and willing to compromise with Steve.

The shock must show, because Danny’s looking at him incredulously. “Seriously?” Danny demands. “ _Seriously_? You’ve been hounding me about this for _months_ and as soon as I give in, you look at me like that? That’s like the lovechild look of your constipated ‘I’ve drank too much’ face and the ‘did I remember to turn the oven off’ panic.”

Steve shakes his head and he finds that he can’t actually summon words to defend himself.

“Did I just break you? Was it really as easy as this?” Danny marvels, holding his splayed palm out in front of his face to study the marked difference. Steve’s caught staring, too, watching sunlight glinting off the ring and for a second, Steve is overwhelmed with the fact that he has genuinely just received everything he ever wanted out of life and no matter what happens, as least he knows he’s done all he could.

“Danny,” Steve murmurs, abandoning the idea that he’s going to find real words to express his feelings. 

Instead, he grabs hold of Danny by the hips, spinning him on his heel so he can slam Danny’s ass against the door of the car, closing the distance between them to claim Danny’s lips in a possessive kiss, the kind that implies that if Danny even _thinks_ about taking back his answer, Steve’s going to have to do a whole hell of a lot of persuading and he’s more than willing to.

Danny pushes forward, trying to take control, but Steve’s not willing to abandon that. His grip on Danny’s hips tighten and he takes a frisson of guilty delight in the _thunk_ of Danny’s ass against the body of the car.

“Steve,” Danny gasps. 

“Am I hurting you?” Steve asks, which is about the only thing he’s willing to stop for, at this point.

Danny stares up at him, his cheeks flushed and the freckles he’s gained from beach days with Grace stand out in stark contrast. It’s enough to make Steve think that Danny’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, enough to spur him into kissing him again, lighter this time in case he is hurting Danny, somehow.

“Danny,” Steve reiterates, terse. “Am I hurting you?”

“Not so much hurting,” Danny mumbles, pointing a finger over Steve’s shoulder in the direction of their apartment window, several stories up. “And more to do with the fact that we have an audience.” 

Steve glances up to where Danny’s pointing, rolling his eyes when he sees Chin, Kono, Grace, Mary, and Garcia peering at them from the glass of the window. Garcia’s practically plastered against the glass and Mary’s _definitely_ holding Grace up like she’s trying to get her a better view of the lions at the zoo.

“You okay to head inside?” Steve mumbles, drifting forward until he’s leaning heavily against Danny and the car. 

Danny gives a soft laugh. “As much as I love you and find your hulking SEAL form ridiculously attractive, I somehow don’t have a hard-on at the thought of our nearest and dearest watching us go at it against a car door,” he says. “You?”

“Yeah, think I’m good,” Steve deadpans, adjusting his shirt nonetheless. “You ready for this?”

“Not in the least,” Danny scoffs. “Which is why you’re walking in first.”

Steve leads the way, grinning like an idiot with every step. Their small family might be odd, might be too nosy for their own good, and might be ready to inundate them with a thousand personal questions, but they’re _theirs_ and for better or worse, he knows he’s willing to cope with them as long as they’ll have him.

Besides, Danny said yes.

Steve’s going to be grinning like an idiot for days on end, at this rate.

* * *

Chin and Kono are waiting with Grace in the front hall of the apartment when they make it inside. Steve’s first through the door, as promised, which gives him a prime view of the banner. “I’m pretty sure _ohana_ doesn’t do this,” he says with some degree of petulance, reaching up to tug down the ‘CONGRATULATIONS ON WAKING UP, SLEEPING BEAUTY’ banner from the front hall.

“Steve,” Grace whines. “I spent a lot of time on that!”

Steve rips it all off to reveal a second banner that announces the same thing.

“We planned for all eventualities,” Chin responds easily. “And we know you.”

Steve shakes his head, tightening his grip on Danny’s bag as he totes it into the bedroom. Not for the first time, he notices how small the apartment looks when it’s flooded with people. Mary and Garcia are chattering away in the kitchen, talking about some old family recipe, some inane small talk that fills Steve with relief because today, there is no pressing crisis to worry about; only family recipes and homemade banners. He lingers for a while, letting the soothing lull of conversation set him at ease, reminding him that Danny’s alive and well enough to argue about the merits of New York pizza with his daughter and their former coworkers.

He’s so involved in listening that he doesn’t realize he’s not alone in the bedroom until Mary forcibly leans over and pokes him in the shoulder. “Hey, big brother,” she greets, a wry smile on her face. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m…” Steve opens his mouth to reply, but doesn’t even make it to ‘fine’.

“McGarrett!” Garcia’s voice booms from the main hall. “Did you do it while he was unconscious?”

Mary arches her eyebrow at Steve. “I thought Mom and Dad taught you better than that,” she deadpans.

“It’s not – I didn’t…” Steve spares a moment to shoot Mary a stern look before he wanders into the hall, completely confused as to why Garcia’s shouting at him like that. He doesn’t make it more than five steps before he sees the cause of the commotion. 

Garcia’s holding Danny’s hand up by the wrist, that gold ring looming brightly on Danny’s ring finger. Seeing it now is as invigorating as it was ten minutes ago and Steve’s grinning like a lunatic at the sight of it. He rearranges his features into passive ignorance, feigning a complete lack of care as he looks at Danny.

“What did I tell you about getting engaged to strangers?” he says evenly.

“Only if they’re tall, dark, and possibly insane?” Danny replies as sweetly as Danny’s ever been able to manage – which is to say that he’s not convincing at all. “I don’t know, I figure after a certain point, I gotta give him what he wants, right?”

“Thanks, Danno,” Steve deadpans. “Real vote of confidence, there.” 

“What, so you don’t want me to marry you? Because I can take it back.”

“No. Nope, not allowed,” Steve informs him. “No takebacks.”

“See?” Danny says, gesturing to Steve. “I’m marrying a child. I’m hoping the honeymoon gets to be during the part of recess where you’re not standing in the corner for pushing a kid too hard.” 

For all that Danny’s bitching, he’s still smiling the way that Steve gets him to do when they’ve gone for three rounds and Steve looks at him and smiles that lopsided and charismatic smile he prides himself in, asking ‘one more for the road?’ Thinking about it makes Steve want to kick everyone out of the apartment so he can take Danny to the bedroom and give him that specific smile.

God, he can’t wait until they move into their new place.

Steve watches Danny talking to Chin and Kono, radiating genuine delight. For all that Danny talks a big game, there have always been tells when it comes to his real feelings. Steve prides himself on being an expert when it comes to those kinds of things. He knows Danny. He _knows_ him inside and out, as much as he did that first time that he considered that what he felt for his partner could be more than just a fine appreciation of his physical form.

_I know you_ , he’d said.

Now, looking at the relaxed set of Danny’s shoulders and the way he’s smiling so widely that the laugh lines around his eyes are crinkled, Steve knows that he’s never been more in love. He’s making the right choice, not that he ever doubted it, but watching Danny gesture around the room with both hands, the light catching the gold of the ring.

Steve grins.

And really, it must be _that_ grin, because Danny mouths ‘later, you animal’ at him.

Yeah, Steve thinks. He could do this forever, as long as they both shall live.

* * *

It’s nearly five in the morning and Steve can’t sleep. He’s awake, poised over Danny’s bare-chested sleeping form, two fingers tracing soft circles around the space on Danny’s chest where the bullet pierced. It’s like a strange oasis because the hair’s stopped growing on this one particular patch.

It’s still red and ugly, reminding Steve of how close he came to losing everything. That thought coaxes Steve to bend over, pressing his lips to the puckered scar. The kiss draws out longer, cautious and careful. 

It also manages to rouse Danny, who’s become a lighter sleeper with the passing years.

“Are you molesting my scar again?” Danny asks sleepily.

Steve doesn’t have an answer. There’s a lot to think about when waking hours are surrounding them. They’ve got a wedding to plan (however small it’s going to be) and a house to move their things into (a house that’s been waiting for them since Steve left for his mission, since Danny got hurt, since they decided they were going to do this, _permanently_ this). They’ve got friends and family to call and Steve’s probably due for another hour-long conversation with Mrs. Williams about treating her boy right.

There’s a whole life to be lived, but in the dark of the twilight hours, all that Steve cares about is the fact that he’s able to kiss that scar on Danny’s chest before watching the rise and fall that proves that he hasn’t lost him.

“I’ve been thinking about how I was halfway around the world when this happened to you,” Steve says softly, hushed as if he needs it to be this way in the quiet of the night. “I know I’m not your partner anymore, but there’s some part of me that was convinced that if I were here, I could have stopped it, somehow.”

Danny’s scoff is heavy. “Don’t be an idiot, McGarrett.”

“Danny…”

“All I hear is further idiocy about to come out and I’m _way_ too tired for this,” Danny complains sharply, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist and forcibly hauling him closer, earning a disgruntled sound from Steve. “Steven. Steve McGarrett-Soon-To-Be-Williamsed. I got shot. You get shot. Everyone gets shot…”

“Okay, Danny, that’s just ridiculous. This isn’t some children’s book,” Steve argues sharply. “Not _everyone_ gets shot.”

“My point, which it’s too early in the morning to discuss, is that things happen and in our line of work, it happens. I mean, you, look at you. Need I mention North Korea? Need I mention the variety of ways in which Victor Hesse bruised and beat your body over the years?” Danny sleepily rambles. “It was bad luck that got me shot and put me in a coma. It was good luck that got me out of it. I mean, it’s just like you and your fashion sense. Bad luck, it is what it is. Good luck, you’re hot enough to pull it off.”

“Why are you always such a bitch in the morning?” Steve wonders.

“Why do you keep initiating conversation at this hour of the morning when you know I can be a bitch?” Danny retorts, mimicking Steve’s tone. “Go the fuck back to sleep. It is…” Danny fumbles, grabbing at the clock on the nightstand, groaning when he sees the time. “It is _five o’clock_ in the morning and you have to be up at seven to teach impressionable young minds about how to defend their country while I lounge on paid leave and learn about why these are the Days of our Lives.”

Steve stares blearily at Danny, trying to figure out if he can protest Danny’s vehemence with a well-placed kiss or the right look. “Danny…”

“Steve, we’re going to have the rest of our lives for this. I’m not dead. I’m not planning on getting dead. You can touch my scar as much as you’d like at a decent hour of the day. Deal?” Danny mumbles. 

Steve knows it’s a lost cause to keep Danny awake. His consonants and vowels are slurred, his limbs sprawled out over the bed. He’s half on the way back to dreamland and there are only a few things that Steve can do to stop that from happening. Since they number ‘intense assault of Danny’s stomach with his fingers’ or ‘pulling Danny’s hair until strands come out’ or ‘insulting New Jersey’, he opts away from all above options.

Instead, he curls a little closer to Danny, holding tight. 

“Deal,” he murmurs, several beats too late. 

Better late than never.


End file.
